Frida Kahlo’s secrets are exposed in museums around the world, making this iconic character even more fashionable and iconoclastic than ever.
A photographic collection of her personal effects is capturing global attention.
Frida Kahlo is one of the most internationally recognized Mexican painters, although she had a rather stormy life, she managed to portray beauty and pain through her paintings, which to date are highly demanded.
© Ishiuchi Miyako
The painter died in 1954, leaving hundreds of objects that now can be found in various museums, including her house in Coyoacan colony of Mexico City, known as “La Casa Azul” (Lit. The Blue House).
However, there was a closet, which passed to his beloved Diego Rivera after her death, and the muralist decided to keep it locked in one of the rooms of his house in Mexico City.
© Ishiuchi Miyako
3 years later, in 1957, Diego died, and left specific orders that no one touched the closet until fifteen years after his own death, but those fifteen years became 50, and in 2004, Diego Rivera’s museum decided to catalog its content.
The reasons why Diego asked to be kept secret for some years are unknown, but undoubtedly the objects found inside were important pieces of Frida’s life.
© Ishiuchi Miyako
The photographer in charge of documenting everything was the Japanese Ishiuchi Miyako, who with her 35mm Nikon camera and natural light, documented over 300 items that were in Frida Kahlo’s old closet.
The images were presented in various museums last year, and now the exhibition “Frida Kahlo – Her Photos” will be on display at the Bowers Museum, in Santa Ana, California, in the United States.
© Ishiuchi Miyako
