For three generations, art lovers have drawn to a residential corner of the Coyoacán section of Mexico City to visit Casa Azul, the house where Frida Kahlo was born, lived, loved and painted for more than 40 years. Its cobalt walls bear witness to a vibrant past, and it surrounds a courtyard and garden cooled by fountains and shaded walkways. Its rooms contain a museum dedicated to the beloved artist, with family photos and memorabilia, as well as the bed in which she spent a lot of time painting while recovering from a horrific tram accident in which she was pinned to a metal pole. The white kitchen with yellow and blue tiles has the names of herself, the love of her life and the bane of her existence, Diego Rivera, written on the walls. Her studio is decorated with artwork and supplies, as well as an easel and wheelchair.
But while Casa Azul remains a favorite destination for any Kahlo fan, a second museum dedicated to the artist opened, just a few blocks away, last September. Casa Roja pulls back the curtain on Kahlo’s family life, perhaps presenting a new work of hers – a kitchen fresco, The name of the gorriones (“The Table of Mockers”). It features grapefruit tree branches like the ones growing in the yard, bougainvillea and a sign inscribed with the title held high by birds. While the mural is unsigned, the family believes it is Kahlo’s work, although French newspaper Le Monde quoted German art historian Helga Bregnitz Buda and biographer Luis Martin Lozano, specialists in Kahlo’s work, insisting she did not paint it. They also assert that the basement could not have been the artist’s private bastion, as claimed, due to her limited mobility due to her polio infection and her debilitating accident.
“Polio never stopped her, not even the accident stopped her. She would climb on top of the refrigerator and say, ‘You haven’t cleaned here,'” Adan García Fajardo, director of the new museum, tells the Observer, while also acknowledging that there is no proof of authorship.
Kahlo’s granddaughter, Mara Romeo Kahlo, lived at Casa Roja until 2023. “I don’t care if they say it was or not,” she says of Le Monde’s reporting. “I was eight or nine years old, and I would always see those paintings on the wall. It’s a strange thing to do without at least backing it up with some scientific research or something like that. My mother and my grandmother would always talk about the mural, and say it was of Frida.”
Frida Hentschel, Romeo’s daughter, recalls that one of Kahlo’s students visited the house and confirmed that he and his colleague did not paint it, saying that he remembered the fresco from visits dating back to the late 1940s. While Christina, Frida’s younger sister, also loved to draw, Romeo and Hentschel didn’t think it was her job.
“There’s no doubt that it exists in Kahlo’s family portraits,” Fajardo insists, noting that Kahlo showed grapefruit in her 1928 still life. Photo of Christina, my sister. “There’s a signature that’s been blacked out, and you’ve got the bougainvillea and the sparrows representing an open house where everyone can come. It could be Frida’s, I’m not saying it’s hers. We think it was painted around 1938. Legally, the mural can’t be traced back to Frida.”
Casa Roja is filled with ephemera, letters, postcards, a darkroom, and photographs taken by the artist’s father, Guillermo Kahlo, a German immigrant who adopted the Spanish for his first name, Wilhelm. A successful photographer in Mexico City at the turn of the century, he spent his free time painting still lifes and outdoor scenes, sometimes finding his lost supplies in the hands of his third daughter, Frida. When she was old enough, he hired her to color his pictures, and taught her lessons in composition and color.
Ironically, the tram accident likely played a large role in Kahlo becoming an artist. She was studying in medical school at the time and was planning to become a doctor. But the accident left her bedridden and she had few options to dispel her boredom other than drawing. It also explains the prevalence of portraits throughout her career (over 50 years), as there were so few worthy subjects of painting at hand.
Kahlo married Diego Rivera in 1929, and he paid off the mortgage on Casa Azul in 1931 when Guillermo and Matilde (who died in 1932) moved to Casa Roja. There, Kahlo took refuge from her tempestuous marriage from 1934 to 1935 after discovering an affair between her beloved younger sister Cristina and Rivera.
“We have no evidence of that,” Fajardo responds. “But what we know about the relationship between the two sisters is that it never stopped. They never broke up or broke up. Frida always thought that Christina was the other half of her heart. Every letter she wrote to her was full of love. So, for someone who was betrayed by a sister, this doesn’t seem to be true.”
After Kahlo’s death in 1954, Rivera was instrumental in shaping the mythology surrounding his wife, but she did not become a feminist icon until his death in 1957. “She began to grow in the minds and hearts of people who saw her art,” says Fajardo, who sees Hayden Herrera’s 1983 biography as pivotal to the public’s perception of Kahlo, followed by the 2002 film starring Salma Hayek. “The family wants to show that Frida was also a truly lively person. This space talks about the intimate life of Frida as a child and, later, the circle of affection that was close to Frida despite the presence of those who tried to monopolize the story.”
Casa Roja’s gift shop displays everything related to Frida, from replicas of her clothes to stationery inspired by her childhood photos. The question is whether Kahlo — an anti-capitalist who joined the Mexican Communist Party in 1927 and hosted (and slept with) Leon Trotsky at Casa Azul — would have agreed.
“You won’t see exploitation of Frida’s photos,” Fajardo says of the gift shop. “I’m not going to turn Barbie into Frida. It’s without any respect for the family.” It refers to an ongoing legal battle between Frida Kahlo’s company against Familia Kahlo, specifically Romeo, which was filed in 2018 after the former sold the rights to Kahlo’s image to Mattel, which then produced a Frida Kahlo-inspired Barbie doll. After years of legal wrangling, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in April reinstated the company’s lawsuit against Romeo, suing the family for tortious interference, potentially exposing it to millions in damages. The proceedings are likely to take place later this year.
“This is the final battle, and we’re confident it will come our way,” says Hentschel. “They’ll have to rule in our favor,” and Romeo adds, “They can’t steal my history and my life and everything. I think the world will say we’re in the right part, because it’s ours, right?”
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