A window into Kahlo's life focusing on the personal, combining her prosthetics, jewelry, and clothes with self-portraits, diary entries, and letters to build an intimate portrait of the artist through her possessions, setting this in the context of her political and social beliefs.
Ninety-five original and beautifully staged photographs of Kahlo's restored clothing are paired with historic photos of the artist wearing them and her paintings in which the garments appear.
Neutral hues, an ill-fitting man's suit and wiggling locks of cut hair supplant Frida Kahlo's usual lively color palette, indigenous Mexican dress and long plaits in Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair (1940). In the wake of divorce, Kahlo turns to her favorite genre, self-portraiture, to express her deepest emotional and psychological urges.
Articles from Library Databases
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Provides a glimpse into the reasoning behind Frida Kahlo’s carefully crafted appearance. “... Kahlo used her dress as both adornment and metaphor and brought Mexican identity politics to the world stage.”
This Dazed article discusses Frida Kahlo’s deliberate clothing choices as an expression of her identity with a focus on the way she “dressed her broken body.”
This New York Times article discusses the 2018 exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The exhibition was the first to display Frida Kahlo’s clothing that was discovered at her home in 2004. Many images are included.
This artnet news article discusses the recent Brooklyn Museum exhibition that paired Frida Kahlo’s artwork with her clothing and personal objects. Many detailed images are included.