Off-Center Views: If in Richmond, Catch this Exhibit

6/16/25

If in Richmond, Catch this Exhibit

Frida as Toddler

Frida Kahlo: Beyond the Myth

Virginia Museum of Fine Art (Richmond)

Through September 28, 2025

Should you find yourself anywhere near Richmond between now and the end of September, by all means make a stop at the city’s Virginia Museum of Fine Art (VMFA) to see Frida Kahlo: Beyond the Myth.

A splash of cubism

Kahlo (1907-54) is, of course, one of the world’s most famed artists–so much so that perhaps you are, such as I was, suspicious that there’s anything new to reveal about her. Wrong! First of all, though Kahlo died at 47, she was prolific in numerous genres, including surrealism, cubism, symbolism, magical realism, and modernism. Second, she had an adventurous love life that remains shocking to some. Her great love was Mexican muralist Diego Rivera to whom she was married twice (1929-39 and 1940-54), but they had an open marriage. Kahlo was openly bisexual and among her lovers was Josephine Baker, Leon Trotsky, photographer Nikolas Muray, Japanese sculptor Isamu Noguchi (who might also been a Rivera conquest), singer Chavela Vargas, and possibly actress Dolores del Rio and painter Georgia O’Keeffe. Though she was a petite mite (about 5’3” tall and not more than 100 pounds), she didn’t apologize for her admiration for communism or her love affairs.

Hit by bus 1926

These things have long been known about Kahlo, but what’s new in VMFA exhibit are images of her seldom seen outside of Mexico, including hurried drawings, self-portraits, and photos and paintings of her made by others. Kahlo was just 15 when she met 41-year-old Rivera. When they married the first time, Frida was already in the poor health that haunted her for most of her life. At 18, she was hit by a bus. In all, she endured 32 operations, including the amputation of her gangrenous left leg in 1953. (In all likelihood gangrene is what killed her in 1954.)


Suicide of Dorothy Hale 1939

Kahlo, Sun and Life 1947

Granted that two world wars and her love of surrealism and modernism predisposed her to favor gloomy subjects, but so too did her Mexican identity with its fixation on death, skeletons, and the supernatural. The VMFA exhibit is dotted with such material.

That said, most visitors are most likely to react most strongly to subjects that are about her. Kahlo was one of those people with plastic (as in malleable) features. Kahlo was something of a fashion plate, a bright quetzal-like presence who wore beautiful clothes based upon traditional Mexican dress. Yet, she retained her unibrow and, depending upon how she posed could look either alluring, coquettish, or masculine. The latter tendency was enhanced later in life when she seldom bothered to pluck her moustache-like upper lip. Her attractiveness also varied according to who was painting or photographing her. Or, how she felt. Naturally, she painted the body cast in which she was encased after one of her many surgeries.