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Lot Essay
It is interesting to study work that Frida Kahlo created before she met Diego Rivera and developed her personal iconography under his influence, because it speaks of a personal search that explored the spirit of her time. In some of these works she "Mexicanizes" European imagery, not unlike Rivera who did the same in creating traditional cubist works that included Mexican objects. In Pancho Villa y la Adelita c. 1927, Frida Kahlo refers to Giorgio de Chirico's metaphysical compositions, that place paintings or screens in the background, which, as open windows, lead the viewer into alternate places.
How Frida Kahlo "Mexicanized" the work speaks of her future way of personalizing imagery she painted. Either she empathized with the subject, overidentifying with it or it left her cold. The former was more likely. In Pancho Villa y la Adelita, Frida Kahlo recreates an evening with her friends, Los Cachuchas, The Berets, sitting around a table. The evidence we have of how the group would have looked in the final work, had Kahlo finished it, is in the surviving sketch. Alejandro Gómez Arias, Kahlo's boy friend at the time, identified the group some sixty years later. Frida Kahlo is the stylized figure in the center of the work, which in the painting, sits also at the table in the middle of the room. The backdrop in the background on the left refers to the Revolution. Armed campesinos are aboard a train passing the snow-capped Popocateptl. The women, the soldaderas, are a reference to women who followed their men into battle. The story of one was sung in the popular 'Si Adelita se fuera con otro' (If Adelita would leave me for another). The portrait of Pancho Villa, hangs centered above the group, maybe Frida Kahlo's unconscious reference to the paradox conveyed by the image.
We are grateful to Dr. Salomon Grimberg for his assistance in writing the essay for the above lot.
How Frida Kahlo "Mexicanized" the work speaks of her future way of personalizing imagery she painted. Either she empathized with the subject, overidentifying with it or it left her cold. The former was more likely. In Pancho Villa y la Adelita, Frida Kahlo recreates an evening with her friends, Los Cachuchas, The Berets, sitting around a table. The evidence we have of how the group would have looked in the final work, had Kahlo finished it, is in the surviving sketch. Alejandro Gómez Arias, Kahlo's boy friend at the time, identified the group some sixty years later. Frida Kahlo is the stylized figure in the center of the work, which in the painting, sits also at the table in the middle of the room. The backdrop in the background on the left refers to the Revolution. Armed campesinos are aboard a train passing the snow-capped Popocateptl. The women, the soldaderas, are a reference to women who followed their men into battle. The story of one was sung in the popular 'Si Adelita se fuera con otro' (If Adelita would leave me for another). The portrait of Pancho Villa, hangs centered above the group, maybe Frida Kahlo's unconscious reference to the paradox conveyed by the image.
We are grateful to Dr. Salomon Grimberg for his assistance in writing the essay for the above lot.