A glimpse inside La Casa Azul — the artist’s cobalt-blue house in Mexico City
‘People are present in the things they choose to have around them during their life,’ says Hayden Herrera, Frida Kahlo’s biographer, discussing the vibrant blue Casa Azul — the house where the artist was born, spent much of her life and, in 1954, passed away.
In this video, Herrera discusses a building that, for her, resonates with the artist’s presence. Built by the artist’s father, Carl Wilhelm Kahlo, the house is filled with objects that represent the artist’s relationships, and her powerful sense of Mexicanidad.
Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), Dos desnudos en el bosque (La tierra misma), 1939. Oil on metal. 9 ⅞ x 11 ⅞ in. (25 x 30.2 cm.) Sold for $8,005,000, a new world auction record for the artist and for any Latin American artist at auction, in the Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on 12 May at Christie’s New York
‘She loved objects — they were a connection with the outside world when she was more isolated,’ explains Herrera. ‘When people went on trips she always wanted them to bring her something.’
La Casa Azul is, too, a monument to the more traumatic periods of Kahlo’s life. ‘You do feel a lot of her anguish,’ says Herrera. ‘It’s full of sorrow.’ In difficult periods, however, the house became an ‘oasis’. ‘She spent so much time there… she decorated it and cared for it — it became a reflection of herself.’
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