This summer, the V&A will explore how Frida Kahlo (b. 1907), one of the most recognised and significant artists and women of the 20th century, fashioned her identity. Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up will be the first exhibition outside of Mexico to display her clothes and intimate possessions, reuniting them with key self-portraits and photographs to offer a fresh perspective on her compelling life story.
The V&A will present an unparalleled insight into Kahlo’s life revealing some objects that have never been on show before. Working in close collaboration with Museo Frida Kahlo, we will display more than 200 objects from the Blue House. Kahlo’s personal items including outfits, letters, jewellery, cosmetics, medicines and medical corsets were discovered in 2004, 50 years after being sealed in the Blue House by her husband Diego Rivera, the Mexican muralist, following her death in 1954. Exploring Kahlo’s highly choreographed appearance and style, these include 22 distinctive colourful Tehuana garments; pre-Columbian necklaces that Frida strung herself; examples of intricately hand-painted corsets and prosthetics which will be displayed alongside film and photography of the artist as a visual narrative of her life. Included in Kahlo’s makeup selection is her eyebrow pencil ‘Ebony,’ still within its original packaging, which she used to emphasise her signature monobrow, a defining feature of her self-portraits and her favourite lipstick, Revlon’s ‘Everything’s Rosy’ and red nail varnish. Her vividly-coloured cosmetics are striking in the celebrated portraits by photographer Nickolas Muray which show her wearing many of the clothes on display.
CLOSING DATE EXTENDED TO 18 NOVEMBER 2018
| Duration | 16 June 2018 - 18 November 2018 |
| Times | Daily: 10.00 – 17.45 Friday: 10.00 – 22.00 |
| Cost | £15 |
| Venue | V&A |
| Address | Cromwell Road, London, SW7 2RL |
| Contact | / vanda@vam.ac.uk / www.vam.ac.uk |