- Title: MEXICO: Frida Kahlo's personal belongings on display in Mexico City
- Date: 22nd April 2011
- Summary: MEXICO CITY, MEXICO (APRIL 20, 2011) (REUTERS) MUSEUM PATRONS ENTERING NEW FRIDA KAHLO EXHIBITION VARIOUS OF NEW PIECES FROM THE EXHIBITION BEING OBSERVED BY MUSEUM PATRONS EXHIBITION CURATOR SITTING IN STUDY (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) EXHIBITION CURATOR, GRACIELA ROMANDIA, SAYING: "What is now being exhibited in The Blue House are testimonies of gratitude, that's the important part. There, the sentiments of the Mexican people are laid bare. The sentiments of the Mexican people are more important than the paintings, the epigraph or the legends that they hold. These are the sentiments of the Mexican people, sentiments that are still principally religious." VARIOUS OF NEW PIECES FROM THE EXHIBITION BEING OBSERVED BY MUSEUM VISITORS EXHIBITION CURATOR SHOWING A BOOK ON THE EXHIBITION'S ART (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) EXHIBITION CURATOR, GRACIELA ROMANDIA, SAYING: "I think that Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera collected testimonies to popular art. Not because they were religious, but they were people who had a precise idea of the manifestation of popular art." VARIOUS OF NEW PIECES FROM THE EXHIBITION BEING OBSERVED BY MUSEUM PATRONS VARIOUS IMAGES OF EXTERIOR OF FRIDA KAHLO MUSEUM
- Embargoed: 7th May 2011 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Mexico, Mexico
- Country: Mexico
- Reuters ID: LVA6731ABRV5S0IJZEDIREPKDTJT
- Story Text: A new exhibit on iconic Mexican painter Frida Kahlo has opened in Mexico City and brings together for the first time 138 restored images of Mexican popular art from Frida's own personal collection.
Entitled "Devotions: With All My Heart", the exhibit features pieces from 1842 to 1934 and encapsulates the passions of the Mexican people.
"What is now being exhibited in The Blue House are testimonies of gratitude, that's the important part. There, the sentiments of the Mexican people are laid bare. The sentiments of the Mexican people are more important than the paintings, the epigraph or the legends that they hold. These are the sentiments of the Mexican people, sentiments that are still principally religious," said exhibition curator Graciela Romandia.
Specially timed for the Easter season, the collection has a specifically religious theme. From the Spanish Emperor's Hernan Cortes' artistic offering to the Virgin Mary to the more humble dedications from rural Mexico, the exhibition encapsulates the religious fervour of Mexican art.
"I think that Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera collected testimonies to popular art. Not because they were religious, but they were people who had a precise idea of the manifestation of popular art," said Romandia.
Pieces from the new collection mirror the themes of Frida's own work.
Kahlo began painting as a teenager while convalescing from a horrific tram crash in 1925 in which she broke her back in three places and fractured other bones.
The accident and a legacy of childhood polio left her in constant physical pain and unable to have children. That suffering is often depicted in her work, which dwells on themes of pain and female disfigurement.
Twice married to Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, who was nearly 20 years her senior, Kahlo also reportedly had an affair with revolutionary Leon Trotsky after he fled the Soviet Union.
Kahlo died in July 1954 after suffering a bout of pneumonia. Her feminism, lifestyle and Communist political beliefs have made her an iconic figure worldwide. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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