A WORLD BEHIND BLUE WALLS
“Why do I need feet, if I have wings to fly?” Frida Kahlo
There is a special atmosphere in this place, the house where Frida Kahlo was born, where she lived as an artist married to an artist, and where she spent her last days. Behind these tall blue walls, the artist created a world of her own, and the creative spirit of the famous Latinamerican artist vibrates in the house. Frida’s paintings hang from the walls, and at their side stand those ordinary things that made up the everyday life of this woman, a family, and the friends surrounding the couple Kahlo-Rivera. The Blue House is mainly that: a house, a place where things tell us a story and invite us to take a walk along its rooms, its corridors, and its patios.
The Blue House holds the paintings that made Frida famous: The Two Fridas, Viva la Vida, Frida y la cesárea (Frida and the caesarean section), as well as her bed — guarded by the portraits of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao—, and the easel given to her as a present by Nelson Rockefeller. We may find the mirrors she used to carefully inspect her own reflection—small mirrors, body-length mirrors, and one that hung from the ceiling on top of her bed—, as well as the painting brushes she used to reinvent herself with. There is the collection of butterflies that bespeak of her love for nature, and then the collection of dresses that betray her womanly vanity.
In this house, corsets painfully reminding her tragic life—there are corsets with plaster ornaments, corsets made of leather, and metal corsets—stand in vivid contrast against the gaiety stemming from the kitchen and the dining room. Every object found in these rooms were part of Frida’s intimate world: toys, artcrafts, kitchen tools, jewels, and sometimes these very objects are to be found in the artist’s canvases as well.
While touring the house, the visitor learns about the family history. The Blue House belonged to the Kahlo family ever since 1904, three years before the artist’s birth. Guillermo, her father, was a photographer. In the painting Retrato de familia (Family portrait), Frida represents a peculiar family tree, where the Hungarian origins of her father meet her mother’s lineage rooted in the Mexican southern state of Oaxaca.
Originally the house was painted white; but Frida and Diego decided to have it painted in blue, inspired by the bright colors of Mexican aesthetical traditions. By 1936, the house is already painted in blue, as recorded in the painting Mis abuelos, mis padres y yo (My grandparents, my parents, and I).
Retrato de Agustín M. Olmedo (Portrait of Agustín M. Olmedo), in Room 1, is a silent witness of Frida’s strong personality. There is a rip in the canvas where the artist tore it, because she learnt that the man in the portrait had declared that she wasn’t worth a penny.
Passionate and direct, the artist built up a personality strong enough to overcome the impairment caused by a childhood poliomyelitis, which was aggravated later on by the accident she suffered as she was eighteen years old. On September 17, 1925, the bus she was riding was crushed by a tramway. A metal pole injured her by the pelvis, provoking severe fractures in her dorsal spine. As she spent several months in bed, Frida started painting.
In spite of her bad health, the artist had an innate sense of humor that sometimes bordered on sarcasm. Ruina (Ruin) in Room 2, was a present offered to Rivera by the artist on 1947 whereby she reproached him his infidelity. The two clocks in the dining room encoded another message. One was set by Frida on the date she divorced Diego (1939). On the second clock she wrote the time and date of the second time she married Diego.
The dweller of the Blue House was also a politically engaged artist. Frida y Stalin and El marxismo dará salud a los enfermos (Marxism will bring health to the sick) testify of a painter who opposed American imperialism and who consistently worked in leftist groups. In fact, Rivera donated part of his money to these same associations.
The kitchen is a place where the artist’s daily life becomes most visible. Parties were thrown and friends were always welcome at the Blue House. Works or names of frequent visitors are to be seen on the walls. The size of the dining room and the number of benches and terraces found in the patio speak of the owners’ hospitality.
The house was also shaped according to the life of the couple and their circumstances. Diego had an addition made to the main building in 1937, when they housed Trotsky and his wife; and some years later, in 1947, he had a studio made for Frida. Ater they divorced, they settled in separate bedrooms, which they each occupied until Frida’s death.
Frida, the woman who loved Diego and his tastes, is a tangible presence everywhere in the house. The now quiet large patio was once the place that gave shelter to monkeys and parrots adopted by the couple because of their symbolic significance in pre-Hispanic cultures. Exhibited in the Blue House is a small part of Diego Rivera’s collection of pre-Hispanic art. The main collection, that the muralist put together over a period of thirty years, may be appreciated at the Diego Rivera-Anahuacalli Museum.
The Blue House may be considered as a monument to several artists of the 20th century, such as Clausell, Orozco, Tanguy, Velasco, but also to popular art. In the house, the visitor can find wood sculptures by Mardonio Magaña, an artist that Diego Rivera brought into public notice; a room totally consecrated to Frida’s ex votos, a most interesting collection of these popular manifestations of religious faith; the cardboard works by Carmen Caballero, the “judera” whose work was well appreciated by the couple Rivera-Kahlo (a “judero” is an artisan who makes those popular cardboard figures known as Judas).
Nevertheless, there was also a practical side to Frida’s personality, for we may also think of her a housewife who took care of the house expenses and kept a record of incomes, as can be seen in the account book in the studio.
Frida passed away in 1954. Her ashes are inside a mortuary urn on her dressing table, in her bedroom. The Blue House was opened to the public in 1958. Ever since, the house receives annually more than 200 thousand visitors —they come in search of that woman who is an emblem of feminism and a legendary figure that she herself helped to create. And maybe the house and the objects inside it have come to inhabit the mind of all these persons who have visited the Blue House, the house that Frida loved so much.
Londres 247
Col. del Carmen
Coyoacán
c.p. 04000
Tel. 5554 5999
Fax. 5658 5778
museo@museofridakahlo.org