Location: Londres 247, Coyoacán
Subway: Coyoacán
Tel. 5554 5999
Open: 10am- 5:45pm Tue- Sun
July 6, 1907 – July 13, 1954
The Frida Kahlo Museum is the most representative
cultural venue of the Mexican artist, as well as a container for an
important part of her artistic and conceptual legacy. It is a house
museum located in the Carmen Neighborhood of the Coyoacán Mayor's
Office, which corresponds to one of the most traditional and beautiful
neighborhoods in Mexico City. A few blocks from the museum, the center
of Coyoacán is located.
Also known as the Blue House, it is one
of the busiest museums in the area. The building, which today protects
and exhibits a collection of pieces of various kinds, belonged to the
Kahlo family since 1904. Four years after the painter's death, in July
19582, it opened its doors to the public as a house museum.
Frida
Kahlo (1907-1954) lived in the Blue House for most of her life;
initially, with her family and years later, with Diego Rivera
(1886-1957). Likewise, characters from the artistic and intellectual
environment of the first half of the twentieth century, both Mexicans
and foreigners, stayed at the residence, attracted by the captivating
couple of artists.
Different figures participated in the
construction of the building, including the painter and functionalist
architect Juan O'Gorman, a great friend of both Diego and Kahlo. The
museography was carried out by the writer, poet, museographer and
Tabasco politician Carlos Pellicer, who is also close to the couple. The
administration of the museum was entrusted to the Diego Rivera and Frida
Kahlo Museum Trust, attached to the Bank of Mexico, constituted by
Rivera himself in 1957. In this regard, this entity affirms that the
planning of the operation of the enclosure was developed “with the
purpose of exhibiting work, illustrating the personality and
perpetuating the memory of Frida Kahlo.”
Frida wanted to leave
her house as a museum, for the learning and enjoyment of her beloved
Mexico. For this reason, Diego organizes, in what was the painter's
home, the Frida Kahlo Museum. Following the will of his wife, the
muralist began this task a few months after Frida Kahlo died, that is,
in the last months of the year 1954.
Since the inauguration of
the Museum in July 1958, the Blue House has exhibited the environment in
which Frida was inspired for her artistic creation, as well as her
personal objects. The latter, it took to be fully unveiled. Before he
died, Diego ordered that the bathrooms of the Blue House not be opened
until fifteen years after his departure. In these spaces, Rivera had
protected part of the couple's documents, as well as certain of Frida's
belongings. Obeying Rivera's indication and extending it over time,
Dolores Olmedo, the muralist's patron, declared that as long as she
lived, she would not open these places.For this reason, only one hundred
years after Frida's birth and fifty after Diego's death, the objects
that Rivera had so manifestly enclosed were finally exposed to the
public, which are known to this day as the Treasures of the Blue House.
Nowadays, along with certain paintings by both artists, notable
works of folk art, pre-Columbian sculptures, elements of Frida's daily
life, part of her magnificent collection of ex-votos, photographs,
documents, books and furniture are displayed in the Blue House.
Likewise, two traveling exhibitions commissioned by the Museum, called
“Frida Kahlo, her photos” and “Appearances Deceive”, are samples of
excellent quality, which disseminate nationally and internationally, the
legacy of Frida and Diego safeguarded in the Blue House.
The poet
and historian Luis Roberto Vera admits that visiting the house where the
artist developed both professionally and personally is of great interest
because “there is a concordance between her pictorial world and her
lived world".
The beautiful garden of the residence also has a
peculiar history and is an essential part of the Blue House. Currently,
when crossing it, you can access the exhibition of Frida's Dresses.
The Blue House is located in a corner of the Colonia
Del Carmen; a neighborhood of 170 hectares that was once part of the San
Pedro Mártir Hacienda. Around 1890, this place received its name in
honor of Doña Carmen Ortiz Rubio de Díaz, the wife of President Porfirio
Díaz. It is located within the Coyoacán City Hall, whose history dates
back to pre-Hispanic Mexico.
Its name comes from the Nahuatl
Coyohuacan, “place of the coyote owners”. According to the Mexican
philosopher and historian Miguel León-Portilla, the region was formerly
consecrated to Tezcatlipoca, a deity with the power to transform into a
coyote at night. The eruption of the Xitle volcano, which occurred
between 245 and 315 A.D., covered this region, as well as many others in
the Anahuac basin, with ash and basalt stones, which were used in many
later buildings in the area.
Despite having had a constant
activity since pre-Columbian times and throughout the viceregal period,
by the time the Mexican War of Independence came to an end, the
territory of Coyoacán had become quite uninhabited. It was from the
government of Díaz, that Coyoacán developed again, until it became what
it is today.
Between 1917 and 1923, the Nursery Park and the
Outdoor Painting School were created. In 1926, the opening of Mexico
Coyoacán Avenue led to the connection between Colonia Del Carmen and
Colonia Del Valle, as well as other neighboring colonies. A little more
than a decade later, the paving of important avenues began, such as
Miguel Ángel de Quevedo. By 1929, Coyoacán was already considered one of
the most important delegations (today mayoralties) of the Federal
District (today Mexico City).
In 1972, the Center of Coyoacán was
declared a historical zone and in 1990, a Protected Monumental Zone.
Today, Coyoacán is home to the quintessential intellectual and cultural
neighborhoods of Mexico City. Its streets have been the scene of the
life and transit of outstanding figures of the Mexican cultural
environment such as Rina Lazo, Emilio “Indio” Fernández, José Clemente
Orozco, Aurora Reyes, Luis Buñuel, David Alfaro Siqueiros and Jorge
Ibargüengoitia, among others.
Carl Wilhelm Kahlo, known as
Guillermo Kahlo, embarked for Mexico as an immigrant at the age of 19.
The young German was motivated by the growing and economically
successful German colony already existing in Mexico, which was
proliferating by the second half of the nineteenth century, as well as
by reading the chronicles of the German explorer, researcher and
scientist Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1869). Likewise, it is possible
that reports about the expansion of the jewelry industry in Mexico have
prompted Guillermo to try his luck in the Aztec country. This, coupled
with the fact that - according to Frida herself - her mother had died,
and she never had a good relationship with her stepmother in Germany.
In 1891, Wilhelm arrived at the port of Veracruz, endowed with the
knowledge inherited from a vast genealogy of jewelers. Accordingly, he
began working at La Perla jewelry store, located in the center of the
country's capital. In 1893, he married María Cardeña, who died giving
birth to their third baby, in October 1897. In February 1898, Wilhelm
married Matilde Calderón, with whom he had four daughters; Frida was the
third of them. Most likely, it was his new father-in-law who introduced
him to the world of photography. Thus, the young Kahlo was soon working
as a reporter for several national magazines.
His career as a
photographer developed satisfactorily and allowed him to acquire in 1904
a land of 800 square meters on the corner of Londres and Allende
Streets, which was once owned by the religious order of the Carmelites.
On this property, Guillermo, the name by which he called himself Wilhem
shortly after arriving in Mexico, built his house at number 75 on block
36, located at the northeast corner of the intersection of London and
Allende streets. According to the Mexican chronicler of Belgian origin,
Luis Everaert Dubernard, there were still not many houses in the area
room:
"With a facade facing both streets, a one-story house was soon
built on the property, on a low-rise basement, with a C-shaped floor
plan around a courtyard to which the rooms faced, aligned one after the
next (...). For a long time, that construction that I remember with the
facades always painted ultramarine blue was the only one in the entire
block."
Before Guillermo's arrival in Mexico, an enterprising and
visionary German businessman, Sigismundo Wolff, acquired the land of the
then Hacienda de San Pedro. Thus, the transformation of the property
could begin, in the Colonia Del Carmen, around 1886. Possibly, Wolff got
this territorial concession, precisely to promote the settlement of the
Carmen colony, urbanizing it in a Moderna way. He facilitated the
commercialization of the lots through agents, information and sales
offices, with plans of the entire colony or fractions of it. It offered
payment facilities and mortgage-based financing plans. His projects
turned out to be an excellent investment, both for him and for the new
owners. One of those plans, an example of professional urban planning
for the time, is preserved in the Historical Archive of Mexico City.
Once in the Mexican capital, it was probably the knowledge of Wolff's
generous contribution and its importance for the establishment of the
Colonia Del Carmen, which prompted Kahlo to build her home there, as a
way to stay close to her German roots. When Guillermo settled in
Coyoacán, he found an area that obeyed the urban planning canons present
in cities europeas.De agreement with Everaert:
"The map shows an area
with an orthogonal line of very wide streets, that is, at right angles,
north-south and east-west orientation, and rectangular blocks of 60 by
100 meters on each side, with typical lots of 1000 square meters, a
large public park in the center, and with the nomenclature of streets
named after heroes of Independence and European capitals."
It is said that the original design of the property
was rectangular in shape and included some outdoor spaces. According to
Hayden Herrera, the structure of the house, its single floor, its smooth
ceiling and its “c”-shaped plan assimilated to a nineteenth-century
design.
It is not known exactly when, or why, the exterior walls
of the house were painted blue. In October 1932 the residence was
already endowed with this color, according to the following quote,
originally from Lucienne Bloch's Diary: "What a house! All shiny blue
with pink corners, with green windows and a central courtyard with
cacti, orange trees and Aztec idols”" When she wrote this impression,
the American muralist was visiting the Coyoacán residence. He had
traveled generously accompanying Frida to witness the death of her
mother, which also happened in September of that same year, 1932. It is
also documented that, in January 1937, when the couple of Leon Trotsky
and Natalia Sedova arrived to stay at the residence, the house was still
painted blue. This is how Trotsky's personal assistant at that time,
Jean Van Heijenoort, tells it: “From the airport I took a taxi to
Coyoacán. In a blue house located on London Avenue, which was surrounded
by policemen, I met with Trotsky and Natalia.”
There is no doubt
that the color of the house is one of the attributes that facilitated
the identification of the house, when it began to become nationally and
internationally famous. Its popularity began, probably, on the occasion
of the arrival of the Russian revolutionary. This visit that lasted for
two years attracted press, as well as social and political activity to
the property.
It is estimated that the beautiful garden of the
house began to take shape in an indefinite period between 1933 and 1936.
In 1937, Diego acquired the adjacent property, previously uninhabited,
of one thousand and forty square meters. This purchase was made possible
thanks to an anonymous donation received by Diego Rivera, intended to
finance the implementation of measures to guarantee Leon Trotsky's
comfort and safety during his confinement. Likewise, the windows facing
the street were boarded up from the inside with adobe blocks, a security
tower facing London was built and the height of the perimeter fence was
raised considerably. Thanks to these infrastructural modifications,
Trotsky and Natalia were safe in the Blue House. The Soviet
revolutionary and his wife stayed there from January 1937 to May 1939.
During this period, Frida and Diego did not live in the Blue House, but
in their residence in San Ángel, which is now the Diego Rivera and Frida
Kahlo Studio House Museum.
In 1941 Frida and Diego settled in the
Blue House; the former permanently and Diego alternating with the
residence of San Ángel. In the mid-1940s, Diego had the wing of the
house built on the Allende Street side. In the garden he built a
fountain, a step pyramid, a fourth container of archaeological pieces
and a water mirror.
In 1946, advised by Juan O'Gorman, the
muralist commissioned basalt stone to be used for the construction of a
new studio, of avant-garde Mexican design. O'Gorman also collaborated
with Rivera to make possible the architectural design that the painter
wanted for two new bedrooms, adjacent to the Studio, and a new terrace.
The latter was particularly impressive in terms of its dimensions and
materiality. The intellectual confidence that Rivera had for O'Gorman
was born after visiting one of the houses that the functionalist
architect designed. About this current, Maestro Rivera said:
"the
architecture realized by the principle of the most scientific
functionalism, is also a work of art. And since for the maximum
efficiency and minimum cost (...), it was of enormous importance for the
rapid reconstruction of our country and, therefore (according to Maestro
Rivera himself), it gave beauty to the building.”
The architectural and decorative style of the Blue
House has been described as eclectic, perhaps because it does not
classify each of its constructive additions. However, if something is
eclectic by bringing together different trends, then the Blue House
could be it.
The property is the result of the combination of two
currents that contrast with each other, without disqualifying each
other: that of the affluent middle class of the late nineteenth century
(although the House was built at the beginning of the twentieth century,
its aesthetics are typical of the previous century) and the Mexican
avant-garde style created by Rivera and O'Gorman. Today, both designs
and construction methods look unified in a single domestic scenario.
In principle, the House responded to the ornamental canons of a
society that sought to absorb whatever was foreign. Thirty years after
its construction, its modification began, with the aim that both the
architecture and the decoration of the house cited the national. The
most decisive changes can be classified into the following stages: the
extensive initial period, from 1904 to 1936, Leon Trotsky's stay, from
1937 and the construction of the Studio, from 1946 onwards.
The only photographs that exist of the building at the
time of Guillermo Kahlo are in black and white. However, this does not
prevent ensuring that the facade of the house, in its beginnings, was
white or of some very faint pastel tone. The visual archives of the
house show a lattice, a molding, doors and windows adorned with dark
frames, possibly in the color of almagre red or sepia. This tonality
obeyed the popular style of the properly Mexican country houses. There
are authors, as is the case of Adriana Zavala, who describe the house in
its first stage as neoclassical. Beatriz Scharrer agrees with this
proposal:
Although it seems strange today, the exterior facade of
the house was neoclassical and also sported the duality of colors
already explained. On a light background, there were contrasting darker
elements such as the frieze of alternating brick heads, the top of the
corner of the house from where the south and west fronts started and the
fretwork that ran along the entire length of the facade delimiting the
interstices of the walls and crowning the windows.
Scharrer also
points out that these characteristics were representative of the
architecture of the Porfiriato, which makes perfect sense considering
that the professional rise of Frida's father, Guillermo Kahlo, took
place during that time.
The exterior view of the building was
characterized by its rectangular windows that reached the floor: four
windows were distributed on each side of the square of the house and a
distinctive window, belonging to the kitchen space, shone on the facade
facing Allende Street. The openings were richly decorated with false
balconies and garigoleted wrought iron railings. A volcanic stone
valance adorned the lower part of the house and, on the contrary, the
cornice exhibited a row of bricks.
The Mexican Revolution
dramatically changed the economic situation of the Kahlo-Calderón
family. Thanks to the help of an antique dealer from the city center,
they sold the French-made furniture in the living room. Some time later,
the couple found themselves in need of renting rooms and even mortgaging
the family house, which they had built during past and prosperous times.
The property was in the name of Matilde Calderón, Frida's mother, so we
know that such a decision had to have been made by both members of the
marriage.
About a year after Frida married Diego, the painter
settled the debt of the house, which became Frida's property. A document
from the Federal District Treasury of the year 1930 confirms the change
of owner of the house located in London number 127. It had ceased to
belong to Matilde Calderón de Kahlo and was now in the name of Frida
Kahlo de Rivera.
The couple of artists did not inhabit the Blue
House after having joined, but until 1931 when they were temporarily
installed. After spending a few weeks in Coyoacán, they traveled to New
York and later to Detroit. In 1933, they went to live in the
functionalist house that O'Gorman designed for them in San Ángel. During
this period of the couple's itinerant stay in different places, Frida's
father, Guillermo Kahlo, lived in the house in Colonia Del Carmen with
his youngest daughter Cristina, and his grandchildren Isolda and
Antonio.
Without prejudice to the above, and according to the
historian Beatriz Scharrer, it was Diego and Frida who, little by
little, gave the residence the particular aesthetic that characterizes
it to this day. They impressed on him their admiration for the peoples
of Mexico with colors and decoration of pre-Hispanic and popular art.
In the autumn of 1936, Diego Rivera convinced the then
President of Mexico, Lázaro Cárdenas, to grant the Russian revolutionary
Leon Trotsky political asylum in Mexican territory. Trotsky was
suffering at that time and for many years, the bitter persecution of
Stalin.
With Trotsky's arrival in Mexico in January 1937, and
anticipating the constant threat to which he would be subjected, Diego
ordered alterations to the Blue House, for security reasons. A
watchtower and a police booth were built. In 1938 the adjacent property
was acquired, which prior to the acquisition constituted a high-risk
front, being uninhabited.
The modifications were not only
functional, but also stylistic. In opposition to the architectural
custom of the porfiriato, in the twenties the imitation of foreign
models was abandoned. On the contrary, now it was sought to rescue and
create a properly Mexican identity, based on pre-Columbian culture and
popular art. It is equally likely that the search for a new aesthetic
for the Blue House was partially motivated by the intention of visually
aligning with the sociopolitical convictions of the Russian
intellectual, only in those aspects that were shared by the pair of
artists. In other words, we had to get rid of everything that gave the
appearance of being bourgeois.
A photograph from 1938 shows how
the walls of the Blue House were flattened. The frieze and the fretwork
that used to adorn the facade were eliminated. Only the top finial was
preserved. The garigoleted bars on the windows were replaced by round
bars painted green. The pots that were on the lattice were removed and
replaced with magueyes and pre-Columbian pieces.
In January 1941,
when both artists Frida and Diego returned to live more or less
permanently in the Blue House, the largest room in the building
(currently room 1 of the Frida Kahlo Museum) was Diego's studio. In the
next room was the then study of Frida; the present room 2 of the Museum.
Here, the artist writes that it was particularly where she was born,
although the latter is not, to date, reliably documented.
The
house also included a guest room and another that contained Frida and
Diego's beds. Frida's bed had been modified in 1925, by Matilde
Calderón, to accommodate her daughter's needs after the severe accident
that left Frida immobilized for many months. Guillermo Kahlo's then
photographic studio occupied what was originally a bathroom, a pantry
and the hallway. Part of the land acquired to guarantee Trotsky's safety
was used to expand the service yard and open a hallway to Allende
Street. A terrace, cellars and bathrooms were also added. Neither the
dining room nor the kitchen underwent structural modifications, but
aesthetic ones: the braziers and the backsplash were decorated with
handmade talavera mosaics. Wooden storage rooms painted yellow were
added and elements were acquired that highlighted the Mexican style that
the couple wanted to impregnate in their home. Among the acquisitions
that were occupied and displayed in the residence at this time, which
are still on display today, we find table linens, kitchen dishes,
tableware, wooden spoons, copper pots, earthenware pots, blown glass
vases and stone molcajetes. According to Graciela Romandia de Cantú, the
couple not only used these objects in their daily life, but also
collected pieces of folk art, “which were pleasant to their developed
artistic senses and nationalist inclinations,” to which they gave a
decorative function that continues to be the protagonist in the house.
In 1945, Frida and Diego decided to design a new
extension for the house and it was O'Gorman who was again in charge of
the constructive design of it. This building, completed in 1946, would
encompass what had been the service courtyard during the previous stage
and would become two new bedrooms, a bathroom and a new studio for the
couple of artists. Today, in the Frida Kahlo Museum this section is
known as the Blue House Studio, in which materials and workspaces of
both artists are appreciated, as they arranged and used them at this
stage of their lives.
Juan O'Gorman, a muralist and architect,
met Diego Rivera around 1922. At that time, Rivera was almost twenty
years older than him. They coincided when Rivera was making the mural of
the Bolívar Amphitheater at the Old San Ildefonso College, formerly the
National Preparatory School. At the age of 24, O'Gorman designed the
first functionalist residential building in the country, which left
Rivera impressed with the new aesthetic order of modernity.
Consequently, in 1931 the painter commissioned this architect to build
his house-studio in a neighborhood of the Álvaro Obregón Mayor's Office,
already then known as San Ángel Inn. This house is today the Diego
Rivera and Frida Kahlo Studio House Museum. In 1942, Rivera trusted his
architect friend again for the initial plans of what would be the
majestic Anahuacalli. At the end of the day, Rivera had the professional
collaboration of O'Gorman throughout the design and construction process
of his posthumous work, which would be inaugurated 22 years later as the
Diego Rivera Anahuacalli Museum.
Returning to the third stage of
the Blue House, a deposit of basalt stones was located in the vicinity
of Coyoacán. It was a relatively cheap material, which required little
maintenance. Diego, inspired by the volcanic stone that had been used by
the Aztecs to build pyramids and carve ceremonial pieces, asked O'Gorman
to cover the new construction with carefully cut blocks of this stone.
This decision, as well as several of the stylistic options that are
currently appreciated in this third stage of the house, were a
reflection of Frida and Diego's preference for environments that clearly
referenced the Mexican; whether it was the traditional, the
pre-Columbian or even the aesthetics of Moderna Mexico.
The
studio was decorated with sculptures, also pre-Columbian. Outside the
studio, 4 patios were built; 2 uncovered and 2 roofed. In the covered
patios, which functioned as meeting rooms and outdoor dining, Frida and
Diego literally "embedded” their style. Both artists designed original
mosaics for the ceilings. That ceiling that illustrates the eye, the
clock, the moon and the sun was Frida's design, while the one with the
oz and the hammer was Diego's conception. Both artists also embellished
the walls of these outdoor patios by adding sea snails and other
decorative elements, such as built-in jugs, to their walls.
This
new architectural space and the original house were connected by an
internal staircase made of basalt, built adjacent to the outside of the
kitchen, which in turn frames a low-level room, of very original design
for the time. Due to its geometry, this space is currently known in the
Frida Kahlo Museum as the “staircase cube”.
In 1953, after part
of her right leg was amputated, Frida had ramps added that started from
the atrium of the garden and made it easier for her to access the
original section of the house. He began to have difficulties accessing
the new studio, because it was reached by stairs. She solved it by
moving to the smaller of the two new rooms, located adjacent to the
study, from which she could move on her own. Frida died in this room on
July 13, 1954.
The original garden of Guillermo Kahlo's house
emulated the nineteenth-century European style. The layout of the house
around a central atrium goes back to the tradition of interior
courtyards in the houses of the first generations of Spaniards living in
Mexico, which were in turn inspired by the Moorish atriums of cities
such as Seville, Cordoba and Cadiz.
The first evidence of a
garden in Frida's childhood home comes from family photographs taken at
the beginning of the twentieth century. In them, you can see the lower
balcony and the patio below it. Among its elements, plants such as
roses, cordylines, philodendrons, palms and bananas stand out. According
to the fashion of that time, the garden had to harmonize with the
architectural structure of the residence. Accordingly, in Coyoacán's
house, numerous terracotta pots lined the edge of the balcony.
Some photographs taken in the thirties reveal that orange trees, carved
columns and new potted plants were added. Although Diego and Frida did
not inhabit the Blue House during that time, it is most likely that
Guillermo would have dedicated himself to documenting the changes that
were the decision of the artist couple.
With Trotsky's arrival at
the Blue House and the well-known purchase of the lot next to it, the
wall dividing the two plots of land was removed and the garden, which
now had an area of 800 square meters, was extended. Among the books of
Frida that remained in the collection of the Frida Kahlo Museum, there
are some of botany. It follows from this that it is possible that the
artist has acquired them to document herself regarding the possibilities
offered by an extensive garden. She and Diego planted both domestic and
imported species; among them, a wide variety of cacti (maguey, cactus,
'viejitos’, biznagas and yucca), fruit trees (orange, quince and
pomegranate) and flowers of various origins. Likewise, Frida and Diego's
pets were added to the garden, including two spider monkeys, a pair of
parakeets, another pair of turkeys, an eagle, a deer called Granizo and
six dogs, mostly from “Mexican hairy dogs” or xoloitzcuintles. Some time
after Frida and Diego married for the second time, in 1941 Rivera
supervised the construction of a step pyramid to permanently exhibit a
selection of his pre-Columbian sculptures. At the central point of the
entrance to the garden, a monolithic figure in the form of a stone hoop
was erected, also of pre-Hispanic origin, of those that were used as a
basket in the pre-Courtesian ball game. There is also a small altar to
Tlaloc in the garden and a kind of baptismal font decorated with a
quincunx border (a symbol used by the ancient inhabitants of Mesoamerica
to designate the directions of the universe: east, south, west and
north, in addition to the center, which functioned as the axis of the
world or axis mundi). Finally, the couple had a pond and a small room
built with a stone-encrusted front in the shape of Tlaloc heads and two
snake heads in the corners.
In 1946, a series of courtyards
already described earlier in the present text were built; some covered
and others exposed. Sections of the walls of the garden courtyards were
covered with stucco, painted blue and framed with tezontle. Towards the
end of her life, Frida moved to the room that had the best view of the
garden, and ramps were installed that allowed the artist to move between
the original section of the house and the central atrium. “The winding
paths in the garden, which still exist today, were specifically designed
so that (Frida) could cross them in a wheelchair.” Shortly after the
inauguration of the Museum, the interest that continues today arose, to
know the plant species that exist in Frida's garden. This research has
been nourished by the fact that many of the artist's masterpieces
include lively representations of plants that still inhabit the garden
of the Blue House. A census made in 2018 to the existing plants, shows
the great variety of origins that the living elements of the garden
have. Jacarandas, bougainvilleas, magnolias, thunders, yuccas, aguates,
cedars, ash trees, medlars, ficus, oaks, Brazil nuts, acacias, lemons,
pear trees, plums, laurels and palms have been recognized. Of the total
botanical species that were growing in the garden of the Blue House for
the census year, 56% originate from outside the American continent, 22%
come from Mesoamerica and the remaining 22% come from other areas of
America. Regarding the number of botanical specimens, the percentage
ratio turned out to be interestingly different. Of the 100% of specimens
that inhabit the garden of Frida's home, 45% are Mesoamerican, 41% are
native to areas not located on the American continent and 14% are
specimens of species that come from other parts of America.
The House Museum allows its visitors to discover the
deep relationship that exists between Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera,
their paintings and their home. The rooms show part of the work of Frida
and Diego Rivera, who also lived there.
Among the highlights of
the House are Frida's beds: the day and the night. The first one has a
mirror on the lintel, which the artist used to paint her self-portraits
while she was immobilized from the column due to the terrible accident
she had. The bed at night, was the one that Frida occupied during the
last years of her life, in which she spent most of the time prostrate,
therefore she needed to change her place every certain amount of hours,
to avoid injuries by being in a horizontal position for a long time.
Another attraction of the Museum is Frida's Studio, where part of
the residence's library can be seen, which brings together volumes that
belonged to Frida, her family, as well as Diego Rivera. The Kitchen of
the Blue House, is one of the most traditional spaces of the Museum in
terms of its aesthetics; the vessels, dishes and utensils of Mexican
artisanal manufacture, are beautifully exposed and reflect the
gastronomic lifestyle of the artist and her family. Although at the time
Frida and Diego lived, gas was already used in the kitchens, the couple
preferred to preserve the stove of the Blue House based on wood,
probably to enjoy the preparation of meals in the traditional style.
Each room of the House reveals the clear preference that the couple
had around the Mexican aesthetic. Thus, for example, pre-Hispanic
sculptures are exhibited in several places of the Blue House. Likewise,
there are more than ten representations on cardboard, called "Judas";
they are great characters that hang on the walls. The artists' Studio
preserves paintings, brushes, pencils, books and notebooks, as they were
once used. In this way, the personalities of Frida and Diego are
represented in their home, leaving their essences in each place.
The artworks of Frida Kahlo that are exhibited in the exhibition halls
give an account of the work process and the pictorial evolution of the
artist during her professional life. Many of these works, probably most
of them, are unfinished. This is because Frida Kahlo sold most of the
paintings she made in their entirety during her lifetime. However, in
the Blue House there are three masterpieces of the artist's career that
are finished: Portrait of my Father (1941), Viva la Vida (1954) and
Still Life; a very special painting in a round frame, from the year
1942.
During his lifetime, Rivera left everything arranged so
that when he and Frida died, the house would become a museum. The
bathrooms of the residence were closed as cellars; the muralist
indicated that they could be opened only fifteen years after his death.
That time was extended to forty-eight years, and when these spaces were
opened, hundreds of documents, photos, dresses, books and accessories
were discovered. It was necessary to annex and condition the building
adjacent to the residence in order to exhibit the treasures found.