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- The exhibition "Frida: Beyond the Myth" is opening next 5 April at VMFA in Richmond, US
The exhibition "Frida: Beyond the Myth" is opening next 5 April at VMFA in Richmond, US
02 April 2025
From the start of her career in 1926 until her death in 1954, the exhibition features many of Frida's most significant paintings and drawings.
Among the more than 60 pieces of art in various media, many of which are rarely seen outside of Mexico, are compositions from her imagination, self-portraits, and still lifes. Several of Kahlo's closest friends and family members, including the well-known photographers Nickolas Muray, Julien Levy, Dora Maar, Imogen Cunningham, and Lola Álvarez Bravo, have also contributed images of her to the exhibition.
“Everybody knows who Frida Kahlo is,” says Dr. Sarah Powers, exhibition curator at the VMFA. “Everybody knows what she looks like. She’s had this whole mythology that’s built up around her. The exhibition is unique in that it’s not just pulling together a bunch of Frida Kahlo paintings and works on paper, it also seeks to tell you where it all came from.”
“Frida: Beyond The Myth” features more than 30 key Kahlo works, including three iconic self-portraits, admittedly the selling point of the exhibit. But it also contains rare early works that are just as fascinating, Powers explains. “There’s so much that’s revealed in the paintings that are not self portraits, these incredibly dense narrative paintings that tell a story. People don’t know that she didn’t hit her stride in terms of self portraiture until the mid-1930s. So we have a whole body of work from the time she started painting in 1926 to the mid-’30s that isn’t necessarily portraiture.”
Read this article from Styleweekly for other comments by the curator.
Sue Canterbury, the Pauline Gill Sullivan Curator of American Art at the Dallas Museum of Art, and Dr. Agustín Arteaga, the former Eugene McDermott Director, are co-curators of Frida: Beyond the Myth.
Dr. Sarah G. Powers, curator of the exhibition, organized it for the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
Logistic details at the exhibion website below.
