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mexico lazaro cardenasconcept:era modern

The Two Fridas

Large oil on canvas by Frida Kahlo (1939). A double self-portrait: two versions of Kahlo sit side by side — one in European dress with an exposed, severed heart; one in Tehuana dress with a whole heart connected by a vein to a miniature of Diego Rivera. Painted at the time of her divorce from Rivera. Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City.

Scholarly Significance

Kahlo's largest canvas and most iconic double self-portrait; core node for Surrealism/Mexican identity cluster.

Notes

  • ·Kahlo's largest canvas — an unusual departure from her customary small format.
  • ·Painted 1939 at the time of her divorce from Diego Rivera.
  • ·Exhibited at the International Surrealist Exhibition, Galería de Arte Mexicano, Mexico City, 1940.
  • ·The government of Mexico purchased it in 1947 for 4,000 pesos — a major early institutional validation.
  • ·The Tehuana dress was Kahlo's signature public dress; it also honored Rivera's aesthetic preference and Tehuantepec matriarchal tradition.
  • ·André Breton regarded this as a central Surrealist work; Kahlo always denied the Surrealist label, calling her work about her reality.