Richmond Part 1: Frida Kahlo
- jderlikowski
- Jun 22
- 7 min read
As someone who occasionally enjoys trying to learn more about art and improving my painting, I want to know more about women who have excelled as artists. Unsurprisingly, females have been overlooked in art, as in other fields. In spring 2025, my cousin invited me to Richmond, specifically to the “Frida: Beyond the Myth” exhibit at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. I had an awakening. Everything I had assumed about Frida Kahlo was wrong. I knew the name but did not know the person. The images for this blog are my photography of my favorite pieces from the museum’s exhibit.
Kahlo’s Life
It would be challenging to fully experience Kahlo’s art without some background about her life. Kahlo’s art grew from her life’s trauma and opportunities. That’s true of most artists, but Kahlo’s experiences were more difficult than most, beginning with her childhood. The literature provided by the museum offers a brief background.
She was born in 1907 in a suburb of Mexico City. At age six (some sources say 11), she contracted polio, resulting in a lifelong limp. In 1925, at age 18, she was severely injured when a streetcar struck the bus she was riding. She suffered broken bones and internal injuries and was not expected to live. As part of her lengthy recovery, she began to paint. The remainder of her life was spent with her art, her turbulent relationship with her artist husband Diego Rivera, and coping with growing health challenges from her early illness and injuries. Though she lived in Mexico, she spent about two years in the United States and traveled to France for two months. She died from health complications in 1954, at the age of 47.
Kahlo’s Art
Three concepts left a deep impression on me, from this exhibit of 30 works of Kahlo’s art, including self-portraits, still lifes, and many that capture magical realism.
First, her self-portraits dominated the exhibit. Most of her paintings and the works of others who painted or photographed her portrayed beautiful hair, often braided in the front with fresh, lush flowers. Though she had many lovely features, one of the unique aspects of her self-portraits is the portrayal of a visible unibrow and, in some works, a faint but noticeable mustache. I thought about this as I reflected on her work weeks later. Was this a mere acceptance of self, or a statement of individuality? This portrayal of her facial features contrasts with how she portrayed some physical challenges. For example, a full skirt in a seated work hid what was likely a wheelchair near the end of her life. She also made a few self-portraits that included the image of her pet monkey.
Another feature of her painting was the reflection of her surroundings. Her self-portraits and still lifes are colorful, reflecting the vibrant colors of her home in Mexico. During her few years in New York, she painted images impacted by the city’s infrastructure and even its news. Her painting, My Dress Hangs There, casts an unfavorable view of American capitalism. The empty dress implies that her heart or soul lies elsewhere. She was longing to return to Mexico after a few years in America.
Her dismay with New York was further demonstrated by her painting, The Suicide of Dorothy Hale, which depicted a New York news event covered widely in the press. Clare Boothe Luce had commissioned her for a painting to share with Hale’s grieving mother. Kahlo’s portrayal of the event was considered so shocking that Luce declined to give it to Hale’s mother. The painting may have partially reflected Kahlo’s despair at her separation from Rivera Diego at that time.
Finally, Kahlo didn’t consider herself a surrealist painter. She viewed her work as magical realism. She said that her work wasn’t of dreams but of her own reality. Yet Andre Breton invited her to Paris to participate in a surrealist exhibition. He also included her in his exhibition in Mexico City. Features of her work seemed to be dreamlike and nightmarish, typical of surrealism. Others’ nightmares were her reality.
I think of her painting Sun and Life as a painting she would consider magical realism. It might also be viewed as surrealism. I interpret the painting as falling into both categorizations. I don’t see them as mutually exclusive, but I understand Kahlo’s preference for the term magical realism.
At first glance, Sun and Life appears to be a beautiful portrayal of the sun in vivid color against the crop of a field. There is much more to it when looking deeper. In this case, the exhibition's descriptor helped me see things I would have overlooked without the interpretation. The exhibit text describes the setting sun as a common cultural myth. There is a weeping eye on the forehead of this sun, which is also used within the surrealist movement. The plants surrounding the sun
resemble wombs, and the plant above the sun contains a crying embryo. Kahlo was unable to bear children, likely due to the injuries she experienced in the bus accident. Her sorrow showed in her art.
Kahlo’s Legacy
In 2023, I visited the Diego Rivera exhibit at Crystal Bridges, Bentonville, Arkansas. There, I learned that Kahlo had been married to Rivera twice. Two of her paintings were included in Rivera’s exhibit. I was glad to learn more about her at this expansive exhibit in Richmond devoted to her work. During her life, Kahlo was celebrated in her native Mexico. Like some other artists, she gained broader fame following her death.
The thirty works of Kahlo are accompanied by thirty or more photographs and prints of Kahlo’s work by family and friends, beginning with those of her father, a photographer. Kahlo’s paintings highlight imagery surrounding her body and pain. She portrayed her life through a sometimes harsh but honest lens and with symbolism. Her self-portraits in traditional Tehuana dress have been described as jewel-like. Kahlo’s art reflects her pride in the Mexican revolution and honors indigenous culture. She examines capitalism and post-colonialism in Mexico. The exhibit at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts shared a quote from Kahlo concerning the extent of her self-portraiture. She said, "I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best."
There are other female surrealists, but Frida Kahlo is the most well-known. At the end of May 2025, The Economist published an article describing the current art market as down. The article notes that surrealist art by Latin American women is an exception. Buyers can obtain their work at a better price, and it retains or grows in value. I would attribute this, at least partly, to Kahlo’s legacy. Following his wife’s death in 1954, Rivera noted that three of the most important female artists of the time lived in Mexico. Kahlo set the path for those successes.
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
I have been fortunate to visit some of the finest art museums in the world, including New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Washington’s National Gallery of Art, and stellar museums in Italy, France, and Spain. Yet, I find some of America’s less well-known museums also provide excellent experiences in the arts closer to home for most of us. My experiences confirmed this at the expansive Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. After a morning savoring the Kahlo exhibit, my cousin and I explored works in several other galleries of this broad-ranging museum.
Of the many galleries in the museum. I was most intrigued by the Faberge Egg collection and the art deco gallery. I was surprised by my interest in these two art styles, which focus on beautiful objects rather than the traditional format of paintings or sculptures. They gave me an expanded view of artistry, including the creative production of objects purely for beauty, such as the Faberge Eggs, and function, such as the Art Deco piece entitled simply “Vase.”
The museum’s collection of Russian jeweled Faberge objects results primarily from donations of Lillian Thomas Pratt’s extensive collection of Russian art objects. The egg’s intricate design in precious stones and metals is displayed on hinged eggs formed from precious metals and stone. A favorite piece was the “Imperial Peter the Great Easter Egg”. Made in 1903, a replica of a statue of Tsar Peter the Great rose out of the five-inch-tall egg when opened.
One particular vase in the Art Deco collection captured my imagination. I estimate that it was about two feet tall. It was a blend of light to dark shades of a rich color that I have favored since my first childhood box of 48 crayons–midnight blue. That color has a hint of green under the mysterious shadows the deep, inky blue creates. Darker palms circled the vase against a lighter shade of the same color. A distant full moon peeked from behind the fronds of one of the palms, providing enough light to create a contrasting paler background of moonlit sky to highlight the darker palms. All of the color and design is subtle. The small-scale portrayal of the moon gave light and life to the vase. It appeared to be shining as if light was coming from within.
The exhibition’s title card for this beautiful vase described it as Newcomb Pottery. It was made between 1910 and 1915 in New Orleans and decorated by Sadie Irvine, one of Newcomb’s most outstanding artists. Newcomb Pottery was a venture of Sophie Newcomb Memorial College, the women’s branch of Tulane University. At that time, men threw the pots and women decorated them. Irvine drew the design onto the partially dry vase, then carved and scraped away material to leave the foreground raised.
The grounds of the museum are also of interest. An intriguing sculpture garden is mixed with ample outdoor dining space among tranquil fountains. The Confederate War Memorial Chapel is located on the grounds of the museum. It was dedicated in 1887, designed in the Carpenter-Gothic style according to the museum’s website. It features hand-hewn pews and commemorative stained glass windows. The chapel hosted many Confederate soldiers' funerals. Other historic buildings on the grounds include the Robinson House, now a regional tourism center, and the Pauley Center, which now houses museum offices. The Memorial Building to the Women of the Confederacy is adjacent to the museum. It originally served as a home for destitute female relatives of Confederate veterans. The Virginia Museum of History and Culture is located on the opposite end of the same block. Like the rest of the city, this block of Richmond is filled with history.
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