Images courtesy of the Museum of Latin American Art. Frida with Olmeca Figurine, Coyoacán, 1939.
Attendees of the upcoming exhibit, Frida Kahlo: Through the Lens of Nickolas Muray, to open at the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) on April 30, will be graced with intimate portraits of Mexico’s most prolific and well known female artist, through the eyes of a lover and friend.
Nickolas Muray (1892-1965) made over ten thousand portraits between 1920 and 1930, after he’d opened a portrait studio in Greenwich Village, according to The New Yorker, but perhaps the most famous are the images he captured of Frida Kahlo (1907-1954).
Muray traveled to Mexico on vacation in 1931, where he met Kahlo. The two started a romance that would continue on and off for 10 years, and a friendship that would last until the end of their lives, according to the museum.
Frida with Nick in her Studio, Coyoacán, 1941.
Frida Kahlo: Through the Lens of Nickolas Muray will display 46 color and black and white photographic portraits taken by Muray of Kahlo between 1937 and 1946, as well as several photographs of Kahlo’s paintings relevant to their relationship. Also included in the exhibition are copies of correspondence between the two artists, according to the release.
“Photography, fortunately, to me has not only been a profession, but also a contact between people – to understand human nature and record, if possible, the best in each individual,” Muray once said.
The Hungarian-born color portrait pioneer photographed important people in political, artistic and social realms; his work was regularly featured in Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair, McCall’s and the Ladies Home Journal. However, Muray photographed Kahlo more than any of his other subjects.
“Muray’s photographs bring to light Kahlo’s deep interest in her Mexican heritage, her life and the people significant to her with whom she shared a close friendship,” stated the announcement.
The iconic photographs have been instrumental to the worldwide audience seeking to understand who Kahlo was as an artist and an individual. Born in Coyocoán, Mexico City, Mexico in 1907, her life as an artist began after she was severely injured in a bus accident and continued as she became political, and married communist artist Diego Rivera in 1929.
Frida on Rooftop, New York, 1946.
She was able to exhibit her work in Paris and Mexico before she passed away in 1954.
The prints in the exhibition have been produced from the original negatives, discovered after Muray passed away, by the Nickolas Muray Archives. Very few originals printed by Muray are in existence. Those he would print were given away as gifts, according to MOLAA.
This traveling exhibition has been organized through the Nickolas Muray Archives and is circulated by Guest Curator Traveling Exhibitions located in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Frida Kahlo: Through the Lens of Nickolas Muray opens April 30 and will run through September 3. For more information, visit the website here.
MOLAA is located at 628 Alamitos Avenue.