In 1904, the Hungarian-German immigrant Guillermo Kahlo constructed a home within the Coyoacán neighborhood of Mexico Metropolis. There, he would increase his youngsters and set up himself as a sought-after photographer, documenting the area’s Colonial structure. One in all his daughters, Frida, would even assist her father in the dead of night room, creating negatives, retouching pictures, and arguably starting her inventive training.
As an grownup, Frida Kahlo would occupy the identical home along with her husband, Diego Rivera, remodeling it right into a gathering place for nice personalities of the period: Leon Trotsky, Henry Moore, André Breton. The home has had a vibrant afterlife as nicely. In 1958, 4 years after Kahlo’s dying, it was transformed into the now-beloved Museo Frida Kahlo (recognized to many as Casa Azul), which vies with the Nationwide Museum of Anthropology for the rank of most-visited museum in Mexico Metropolis.
Final evening, a brand new chapter in Kahlo’s story was introduced on the Park Avenue residence of Christine and Stephen Schwarzman: The general public opening of a Museo Casa Kahlo, adjoining to the storied Casa Azul, will happen on September 27. Already dubbed “Casa Roja,” the constructing the place the brand new museum will likely be housed was initially owned by Frida Kahlo’s mother and father; she later bought it from them as a house for her sister Christina and Christina’s household.
“Cristina was by her aspect by so a lot,” says Frida Hentschel Romeo, Kahlo’s great-grand-niece, “touring along with her to New York for her first main exhibition, supporting her by surgical procedures and restoration.”
Kahlo’s closest dwelling descendants—Mara Romeo Kahlo (Christina’s granddaughter and Kahlo’s grand-niece), her daughter Mara Deanda Kahlo (Kahlo’s great-grand-niece), and Hentschel Romeo—got here to New York to publicize the brand new establishment. “For the primary time, the voice of the household will likely be on the coronary heart of how Frida’s story is informed,” says Hentschel Romeo. “This museum isn’t nearly her work—it’s about her world. It’s about how the individuals closest to her formed who she grew to become. And it’s additionally concerning the dwelling household—these of us who carry her legacy ahead.”
The museum will exhibit private gadgets which have by no means been proven earlier than, together with letters, childhood pictures, a chunk of embroidery Kahlo made on the age of 5, dolls, jewellery, clothes, and the very first oil portray she ever created. This was the portray, says Hentschel Romeo, that Kahlo confirmed to Diego Rivera to find out if she had the talent to turn out to be a painter. “It’s extremely shifting to see up shut,” she provides. The museum may even showcase a newly found mural—believed to be the one Frida Kahlo mural in existence.
