Largest-ever Frida Kahlo exhibit opens 100 years after her birth

Jun 14, 2007, 9:10 GMT

Mexico City - The largest exhibit on the life and work of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo opened in Mexico City with President Felipe Calderon among the people attending.

The exhibit at the Palacio de Bellas Artes museum features paintings, drawings, photographs, letters and documents by and about the artist, who died in 1954.

It is one of many events Mexico has planned this year to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Kahlo's birth on July 6, 1907.

Calderon's presence complicated Wednesday night's opening because supporters of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the leftist who lost to the conservative Calderon in last year's contested presidential election, tried to block the president from entering the museum. The demonstrators retreated after the intervention of a large group of security officers.

The exhibit that is kicking off the Kahlo celebrations includes works by the artists that have never been seen in public before. It is open through August 19.

It opened a few days after an announcement that scholars had discovered more than 100 previously unknown drawings by Kahlo and her husband, muralist Diego Rivera. The works were found in a hidden room in the Blue House, a Mexico City residence where the couple had lived and which is now a museum, newspaper reports said.

Kahlo began painting in her late teens while she was recovering from a bus crash that broke her back, her pelvis and a leg in 11 places, crushed a foot and impaled her abdomen with a handrail. She remained in pain from the accident for the rest of her life and was unable to have children because of it.

Her paintings, primarily self-portraits, combined symbolism, realism and surrealism to depict her own pain and celebrate Mexico's indigenous cultures. She became known not only for her artwork but also for her feminism, her often stormy relationship with Rivera and her support of communism.