Casa Azul in Coyoacan in Mexico City

The house/museum is located in Colonia del Carmen area of the Coyoacán bario of Mexico City.  Originally the family home of Frida, it is here where she was born and died.   After marrying Diego Rivera, she had lived in various parts of Mexico City, the United states and abroad, but she always returned to her family home in Coyoacán.

The first thing Frida and Diego did when they moved into the home in Coyoacán, was to have the facade of the house painted azul anil.  This deep blue color is designed to ward of evil spirits.

Portrait of My Father by Frida Kahlo.  

Wilhelm (Guillermo) Kahlo, who was of German heritage, immigrated to Mexico and ran a photography studio.  Later after Diego and Frida married and lived in the house, Diego ended up purchasing the property and paying of the mortgages and debts left by her father.  His fortunes had declined in the thick of the Mexican Revolution and the burden of the medical bills due to Frida's accident had left the family in debt.

 Her mother was a native Mexican, Matilde Caldeon y Gonzales.

During the Revolution, her mother would open her windows and and donate supplies to the Zapata army when passing by.  

Frida Kahlo - 1929 - Portrait of a Girl (unfinished)

This portrait looks very much like Frida as a young girl.  She spent a lot of time in the house convalescing.  First in 1918 when she had a bout with polio which left one leg shorter than the other and later when she was 18 when she was in a horrific bus and street car accident which left her body terribly mangled which resulted to almost two years confined to bed in a cast and other orthopedic devices.  It was at this point in her life that she began her artistic career.  

Frida at the age of eleven.
 

Frida Kahlo - 1931 - Portrait of Arija Muray

Arija was the daughter of a fellow photographer who photographed Diego and Frida often.

Frida Kahlo ~ 1954

"Marxism will bring health to the sick"

At the age of 38, Frida had created her own identity, drawing attention especially in the way she dressed and presented herself.  She was fond of wearing Tehuana outfits, the typical dress of the women in Oaxaca, and wearing her hair in braids wrapped into a crown like style adorned with flowers or colorful ribbons. She identified with the dress for her mother Matilde was from Oaxaca and had been photographed as a child wearing the Tehuana dress.  The traditional dress of the Tehuanas was known nationwide to be the symbol of the most independent and proud indigenous women in all of Mexico.

In this piece, she has been cured of her disabilities and liberated from the trauma by casting off her crutches and clutching her red book. 

 Frida wrote:

"Quiza esperen oir de mi lamentos de lo mucho que sufre' viviendo con un hombre como Diego.  Pero yo no creo que las margenes de u rio sufran por dejarlo correr." 

"Perhaps they expect me to wail and moan about how much I suffer living with a man like Diego.  But I don't think that the banks of a river suffer by letting it flow."

 

Frida Kahlo - 1954

Long Live Life ~ Viva la Vida

Frida's  last painting was Viva la Vida, Long Live Life.  After complications from an amputated leg, she painted watermelons for their significance to the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead).  

She had always been attracted to the beauty and colors of the watermelon.  She once said, "It's an amazing fruit.  On the outside, it's a wonderful green color, but on the inside, there's this strong and elegant red and white.  The pitaya is bright red, like a pomegranate sprinkled with black dots.  Then there is the pitahaya.  It is fuchsia on the outside and hides the subtly of a whitish-grey pulp flecked with little black spots that are the seeds inside.  This is a wonder!  Fruits are like flowers: they speak to us in a provocative language and teach us things that are hidden."

Diego Rivera - La Quebrada -1956

Diego painted La Quebrada at the home of Dolores Olmedo in Acapulco where he lived his last years suffering from cancer.  Quebrada is the famous site of the Acalpulco cliff divers.  He dedicated this piece to Frida, two years after her death.

 

Maria de los Dolores Olmedo y Patino Suarez (December 14, 1908 - July 26, 2002) was a Mexican businesswoman, philanthropist and musician.   And a good friend of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.   In 1962 she purchased the 16th century hacienda, Hacienda La Noria (the water wheel estate) located in Xochimilco, in the southern edge of Mexico City.  In 1994 she converted her estate into a museum, donating her entire collection which included pre-Hispanic art, folk art, contemporary art along with one of the largest private collections of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera's works.   (See my posts dated February 4 - 19, 2020 for more on the museum and its collection.)

Frida and Edward Weston - 1935 - "For my darling, my love."

It is on the main floor where there images above are on display.   Being the formal living room, Diego and Frida entertained high-profile Mexican and international guests such as Sergei Eisenstein, Nelson Rockefeller, George Gershwin, caricaturist Miguel Covarrubias and Dolores del Rio.  It was a meeting place for the city's Bohemian set in the 1930's and 1940's.

 Frida and Diego enjoyed collecting folk art and ceramics from different part of Mexico.

 

Frida's bedroom.  Her mother installed a mirror facing down under the bed's canopy which she used to paint many of her self-portraits.  On the bed sits a black desk mask surrounded by one of her many rebozos. 

Frida had numerous collections:  folk art toys, marbles and almost 2,000 exvotos (retabl0s).    An exvoto (votive offering) is a painting, usually on tin, of a scene depicting a miracle with text explaining the event along with a saint or religious figure believed responsible for the miracle pictured.  The most common reason for expressing thanks is health, many exvotos are dedicated for after an operation or survival of an accident. 

Diego's bedroom.  It was used by Leon Trotsky during his exile in Mexico in 1937 and later by Diego at the end of his life in the house.  It was when Trosky lived with them, that was when the big blue painted exterior walls were constructed and land was bought which is now the gardens.  It was a way to offer Trosky some protection from Joseph Stalin's hired assassins.

Note Diego's denim overalls and large straw hats.

Diego had asked Dolores Olmedo to turn the home into a museum after they both had died, leaving it open to the public except for one bathroom which was to be opened 15 years after his death.  15 years turned into 50 years, and the bathroom was eventually opened after the death of Dolores Olmedo where an important archive of Frida's was found;  documents, books, drawing, 1,000 letters, dresses, photos, toys, medicines, prosthetic limbs and corsets, notes on 22 surgeries...  There was so much new material, the house next door was purchased to showcase her things, especially her wardrobe.

The kitchen is where everyone would congregate.  The stove is decorated with white, blue and yellow tiles and the names Frida and Diego are spelled out in tiny earthenware jugs on the wall.  Frida reveled in entertaining, preparing a variety of Mexican dishes, creating a lovely table down to the floral arrangements from her garden.

 

 The kitchen is full of earthenware pots from Oaxaca, glasses and cups from Guadalajara, Puebla and Guanajuato and copper pots and kettles from Santa Clara de Cobre.

In Frida's studio is the adjustable easel given to her by Nelson Rockefeller along with her brushes.

 

 What a beautiful well lit studio,  so full of natural light.  

This is the exterior of Frida's studio on the second floor.  It was in 1946 that Diego asked Juan O'Gorman to build a studio for Frida using the local materials.  He used the volcanic stone, basalt, that the Aztecs had also used in building their pyramids.  I love how the clay pots are set into the volcanic stone wall.

 

Diego collected several archeological pieces, one being the sculpture of Xilolen, the goddess of young corn.  Nelson Rockefeller, also a connoisseur of this art, praised Diego on his collection.

The beautiful, lush gardens.

An area where you can sit and take it all in.

 

Some of Frida's gorgeous outfits.

I love the embroidery on on the white and red top.  Just stunning.

What a funky top.  I would imagine it was not that comfortable to wear thou.

And her crazy boots.  I could see someone wearing those today!

 I can not even imagine the physical pain she suffered from her tragic accident.  Just looking at this bulky corset speaks for itself.

 Casa Azul is a must when visiting Mexico City.  Hopefully, October 0f 2021 I will be able to take another group to Mexico City for a week and Casa Azul will definitely be on the itinerary.

 

I found this quote of Frida's so poignant especially in the trying times 

we are encountering today with this pandemic .

 We will survive and endure.

 

Viva Frida!  

 

Viva la Vida!