Frida Khalo and Diego Rivera

Frida Khalo and Diego Rivera: The Golden Age of Mexican Painting
by Chloe Sayer

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) and Diego Rivera (1886-1957) have iconic status in Mexico. The Mexican Revolution of 1910 swept away the old régime and banished European influence in the arts.

Kahlo and Rivera, in their different ways, helped to shape the cultural identity of twentieth-century Mexico. Together they made Mexico a magnet for the rest of the world.

The Mexican mural movement, born during the 1920s, was destined to produce some of the greatest public art of the last century. Diego Rivera’s panoramic images adorn the walls of public buildings, combining social criticism with a faith in human progress. Inspired by early Italian fresco painting, as well as by Aztec and Maya imagery, his intricate visual narratives incorporate allegory and symbolism.

Compared with the monumental scale of Rivera’s work, Kahlo’s work is small in format. Arguably Mexico’s most original painter, she made herself the principal theme of her art. Her paintings reflect her experiences, dreams, hopes and fears.

In 2005 an estimated 340,000 visitors saw her retrospective at Tate Modern. Photographs of Frida were simultaneously exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery under the title Frida Kahlo: Portraits of an Icon’. In 2011, the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester hosted an exhibition of their work: Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera: Masterpieces from the Gelman Collection. In 2018, the Victoria and Albert Museum showed paintings, photographs and clothing for the exhibition Frida Kahlo: Making Herself Up’.

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