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The Casa Azul

The Casa Azul (Blue House) is Frida Kahlo’s private universe. She spent most of her life here, first with her family and, years later, at Diego Rivera’s side. They hosted a fascinating array of luminaries from Mexico and abroad, drawn by the charisma of both artists.

Frida and Diego wanted to leave her house as a museum for all Mexicans to enjoy. At her death, the couple’s friend, museographer and poet Carlos Pellicer did the exhibition design. Its administration was assigned to a trust, the Fideicomiso de los Museos Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo, under the central bank, Banco de México, and constituted by Rivera himself in 1957.

Since its inauguration in July 1958, the Casa Azul and its gardens have displayed personal objects and paintings by both artists, folk art, Pre-Columbian sculpture, photos, documents, books, and furnishings that were part of the ambience where Frida was inspired to create.

Collections

The Casa Azul speaks of the loves of Frida and Diego, and of their admiration for Mexican culture and art. In the “Artist’s Bedroom,” you’ll find her four-poster bed with the mirror that her mother had installed after the accident. There, immobile for nine months, Frida began to paint. In the “Studio” you’ll find the easel that Nelson Rockefeller gave her. The crutches, corsets, and medicines attest to the surgeries and physical ailments she suffered. The ex-votos, toys, clothing, and jewelry speak of Frida as a collector and lover of beauty. The “Kitchen”—typical of traditional Mexican homes—reflects everyday life in the house.

Thanks to the support of ADABI (Apoyo al Desarrollo de Archivos y Bibliotecas de México), we could organize, classify, and digitalize the documents, photos, magazines, publications, books, and drawings found in these spaces. Everything in the Casa Azul embodies passionate experiences.

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Casa Azul 

Installed in the late 1960s, this permanent exhibition preserves the ambience and treasured objects that surrounded Frida and Diego: iconic paintings like Viva la Vida (Long Live Life) and Frida’s first self-portrait, the collection of ex-votos, photos and paintings from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries that the artists inherited, folk art, toys, and personal items, furniture, work tools, attire, and even an urn where the artist’s ashes rest on a dresser that serves as an altar.

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Appearances Can Be Deceiving: Frida Kahlo’s Wardrobe 

This is the first display showcasing the artist’s wardrobe, found in Frida’s bathroom in 2004. It features skirts, blouses, rebozos, headgear, shoes, outfits that show how, through attire, the artist revisited her family tradition, hid her disability, and constructed her iconic image. Frida’s style has inspired renowned international designers and has created a bridge between fashion from the past and that of the present.

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Letters for Frida (November, 2019)

Curated by: Betsabeé Romero

Frida lived in Paris for three months during her participation in the exhibition Mexique. Her encounter with avant-garde movements, the great artists of the epoch—such as Picasso and Dalí—and a Europe on the verge of war was one of the most fascinating moments in the painter’s life. The letters she sent and received in that time reveal her loves, conflicts, alliances, and ideas about the world and art.

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With My Heart’s Truths (April, 2011)

Curated by: Graciela Romandía de Cantú

Frida and Diego amassed almost 500 ex-votos, and their collection is regarded as one of the most comprehensive in Mexico. This exhibition showcased 138 of these works expressing gratitude for miraculous recoveries, finding lost animals, and surviving serious accidents. Their bright colors and popular flavor served as models and inspiration for some of Frida’s works.

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Frida Kahlo, Her Photos (November, 2009)

Curated by: Pablo Ortiz Monasterio

As the daughter of a photographer, images were always important for Frida. This exhibition highlighted more than 200 of the 6,500 photos in the Casa Azul archives. Grouped into six major thematic categories, the images show how they formed an important part of Frida’s personal, family, social, and even political ties and how they became an inspiration for her painting.

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Frida’s Portrait of Diego (September, 2008)

Curated by: Ricardo Pérez Escamilla

Frida speaks of Diego and their dynamic as a couple, and even of the advice they gave each other about their different creative styles. Political manifestos, canvases, sketches for murals, personal correspondence, photos, architectural plans for the Anahuacalli, posters, pre-Hispanic art are part of the puzzle that Diego once was as a painter, artist, politician, celebrity, and Frida’s partner.

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Treasures of the Casa Azul (July, 2007)

Jointly curated by: Pablo Ortiz Monasterio, Ricardo Pérez Escamilla, Teresa del Conde, Alicia Azuela, and Marta Turok

In 2004 thousands of documents, photos, magazines and books, dozens of paintings, personal objects, garments, corsets, medicine, and toys were discovered in the bathrooms and wardrobes in the Casa Azul or Blue House. These finds, the biggest in the museum’s history, revealed previously unknown aspects of Frida and Diego.

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Leo Eloesser: Medicine and Pain in Frida Kahlo’s Work. An Epistolary Relationship (August, 2005)

Curated by: Juan Pascoe and the Museo Frida Kahlo team

The professional relationship and friendship between the painter and the man, who was her primary physician since 1931, is revealed in letters they exchanged for almost two decades. Both descendants of German families, Frida and Leo wryly wrote about subjects as wide-ranging as maternity, music, the war, love, and infidelity.

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¡Viva la Frida! Life and Art of Frida Kahlo (Drents Museum, Assen, The Netherlands; October 8, 2021 – April 18, 2022)

Joint curators: Circe Henestrosa, Gannit Ankori, and Annemiek Rens

Two collections are brought together for the first time in this exhibition: Frida’s paintings, drawings, and personal items from the Casa Azul. The clothing, jewelry, medicines, and canvases tell a more comprehensive story of this fascinating Mexican artist.

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Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving (De Young Museum, San Francisco, California, United States; September 29, 2020 – February 7, 2021)

Joint curators: Circe Henestrosa, Gannit Ankori, and Hillary Olcott

This exhibition presents objects from the Casa Azul—drawings, photographs, corsets, accessories, garments—that spotlight Frida’s creative diversity. Together with her work, these intimate belongings express the profound relationship that Kahlo had with politics, gender issues, disability, and national identity.

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Frida Kahlo. Making Her Self Up (Victoria & Albert Museum, London, United Kingdom; June – November, 2018)

Co-curators: Claire Willcox and Circe Henestrosa

Amidst medicine, corsets, makeup, accessories, jewelry, attire, pictorial work, and photos, Frida constructed her visual identity to achieve an iconic image.
Based on Appearances Can Be Deceiving currently on display in the Casa Azul has been presented in two versions in the United States: in the Brooklyn Museum of New York (February to May 2019) and in the De Young Museum of San Francisco (September 2020 to May 2021).

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Frida Kahlo: Her Photos (Various venues; Since 2012)

Curator: Pablo Ortiz Monasterio

Photos from Frida’s personal collection, grouped into six subjects. They display scraps of her professional history, her preferences, her country, the times she happened to live in . . . a photographic collage that reveals new facets of the artist.

* For more on where it has been exhibited, see: https://www.terraesplendida.com/portfolio-item/frida-kahlo-as-suas-fotografias/

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The Anahuacalli, our partner museum

Throughout his life, Diego Rivera assembled an impressive collection of pre-Hispanic pieces. He wanted the building housing them to also be an inhabitable artwork.

In 1941 Diego began the Anahuacalli, a construction blending modern art and the Pre-Columbian aesthetic. To built it, Rivera acquired land in the lava field created by the Xitle volcano. Planning to bequeath it to the Mexican people, he imagined the Anahuacalli as a unique architectural work: a City of the Arts in continuous creation. Today, the Museum houses more than 45,000 pieces, 2,000 on permanent display.

Visit it! The ticket for the Museo Frida Kahlo includes admission to the Museo Diego Rivera-Anahuacalli.

For more info: http://museoanahuacalli.org.mx/

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