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Guillermo Monroy Becerril, one of the Frida's disciples known as 'Los Fridos', dies at 102 years old
13 February 2026
Guillermo Monroy Becerril was a Mexican muralist, draftsman and engraver, a graduate of the National School of Painting, Sculpture, and Engraving La Esmeralda, and precisely a member of the group of artists known as 'Los Fridos', for being disciples of Frida, like prominent artists such as Feliciano Peña, Raúl Anguiano, Agustín Lazo, José Chávez Morado, and Everardo Ramírez.
In September 2024, the Government of Mexico, through the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature (Inbal), awarded Monroy Becerril the Gold Medal of Fine Arts in Visual Arts along with the sculptor Geles Cabrera and his colleague Arturo Estrada. On that occasion, upon receiving the award, he pointed out that, as a leftist fighter, the social struggle "is completely part of me with a revolutionary and plastic sensibility that I carry in my gut. I could not paint if I were not in the social struggle," he said, recalling his training alongside Kahlo, Rivera and other muralists. "To all of them, thank you very much, because they are part of me, of my fight for the Mexican peasants, workers, for the students, for all those who fight to be well," he said on that occasion.
(taken from De Último Minuto news)
Read at the link below a very interesting page about this less known aspect of Frida's biography: her role as a teacher and her viewpoints on how one learns to be an artist.
Caitlin Swindell, Curatorial Assistant in the department of Modern and Contemporary Art of the Denver Art Musem writes: "While Los Fridos began as a group of just four pupils, it grew into an organization of politically active painters known as the Young Revolutionary Artists with 47 members. Kahlo’s guidance, resiliency, strength, and political interests had a lasting effect on these artists. As a teacher, Frida Kahlo provided students lessons about how to look at the world—not just how to go about creating art.
She treated her pupils as if they were members of her own family and nurtured their creativity up until her death in 1954. She demonstrated a strong emphasis in exploring how cultural aspects of her life and the lives of her students were depicted in society, and prompted students to be curious in their artistic, professional, and personal pursuits."
