For the first time, a comprehensive collection of works by the Mexican painter, her husband, and their contemporaries is being shown in Australia.
Despite having painted fewer than 150 works and having died aged just 47, Frida Kahlo is one of the most famous female artists in the world. Her story is one of vision, single-mindedness, resilience and independence, traits that have inspired women for generations.
Her body became an extension of her art; she wore flowers in her hair, colourful traditional Mexican dress from her Oaxacan heritage and traditional jewellery. She often emphasised her monobrow and moustache in her paintings and occasionally dressed like a man, in suits.The show at AGSA includes many shots of Kahlo and Rivera by some of the world’s top photographers of the time, but the focus was on the flamboyant woman who attracted their lenses like moths to a flame.
Curtin says Kahlo’s work reveals something fundamental about the human condition. “They are self-portraits that are so revealing and unflinching. ‘Look or don’t look, I don’t care,’ she seems to say.”Magda Carranza, curator of the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of Mexican Modernism, says Kahlo has captured imaginations around the world.
The French surrealist Andre Breton saw Kahlo as a natural fit with his movement – alongside Dali, Magritte and Man Ray – but Kahlo rejected the idea. Ironically, part of why he saw her as a surrealist was the inclusion of animals in her paintings, deer, monkeys, birds and Xoloitzcuintle , which were assumed to be dream-like, or imagined. In reality, the family home was full of animals and she was in fact painting her immediate surrounds.
The artworks on show in Adelaide come from the collection of Russian film producer Jacques Gelman and his Czech wife, Natasha, who left Europe in the 1940s and headed for Mexico City, where they met and married.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Weather forecast Australia: A chilly start for Australia's shortest day of the yearToday marks the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, making it both the shortest day and the longest night of the year across Australia. 9News
Read more »
Weather forecast Australia: A chilly start for Australia's shortest day of the yearToday marks the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, making it both the shortest day and the longest night of the year across Australia. 9News
Read more »
Air Force commander to take on hackers as Australia’s first cybersecurity bossA senior Air Force commander will become Australia’s first cybersecurity tsar, as the federal government responds to one of the biggest data breaches in the country’s history
Read more »
Iconic Australian chocolate company collapsesAustralia’s oldest chocolate company Ernest Hillier Chocolates has collapsed into voluntary administration again, with dozens of employees set to lose jobs. 7NEWS
Read more »
One of Australia's oldest chocolate companies collapsesErnest Hillier, the iconic Australian chocolate brand that claims to be the country&x27;s "longest continuously operating confectioner", has gone into voluntary administration.
Read more »