The first solo presentation of artist Frida Kahlo’s work in New York City in more than 10 years, FRIDA KAHLO: Art, Garden, Life, focuses on the artist’s engagement with nature in her native country of Mexico, as seen in her garden and decoration of her home, as well as her complex use of plant imagery in her painting. Opening on May 16, 2015, and remaining on view through November 1, 2015, The New York Botanical Garden’s exhibition is the first to focus exclusively on Kahlo’s intense interest in the botanical world.

Guest curated by distinguished art historian and specialist in Mexican art, Adriana Zavala, Ph.D., the exhibition will transform many of The New York Botanical Garden’s spaces and gardens. It will reimagine Kahlo’s studio and garden at the Casa Azul (Blue House) in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, and include a rare display of more than a dozen original paintings and drawings on view in the LuEsther T. Mertz Library’s Art Gallery.

Accompanying programs invite visitors to learn about Kahlo’s Mexico in new ways through poetry, lectures, Mexican-inspired shopping and dining experiences, and hands-on activities for kids. Bilingual texts in English and Spanish will provide historical and cultural background, with photos of the garden as it appeared during Kahlo’s lifetime, along with quotes from the artist about her home and connection to the botanical world.

“FRIDA KAHLO: Art, Garden, Life will be a one-of-a-kind exhibition that will provide an in-depth look at Kahlo’s work and artistic environment and also celebrate the energy and sophistication of Mexican culture,” explains Gregory Long, CEO and The William C. Steere Sr. President of the Garden. “Frida Kahlo is a profoundly important artist whose work reflects the complexity of the artist’s life and times. The Garden is proud to present this focused look at Kahlo’s work, which examines how it was influenced by nature.”

“It has been a tremendous privilege to work with the team at The New York Botanical Garden to bring FRIDA KAHLO: Art, Garden, Life to fruition,” notes Guest Curator Adriana Zavala, Ph.D., “As a scholar and ambassador of Mexican culture, I am proud that this exhibition will enrich our understanding of Frida Kahlo’s connection not just to her native Mexico but to the natural world overall. The research that has gone into building this multifaceted project demonstrates that Kahlo’s life, her times, and her work were, like the natural world itself, a crossroads of transcultural influences.” 

The landmark Enid A. Haupt Conservatory at The New York Botanical Garden will come alive with the colors andtextures of Frida Kahlo’s Mexico. Visitors entering the exhibition will view a reimagined version of Kahlo’s garden at the Casa Azul (Blue House), today the Museo Frida Kahlo, the artist’s lifelong home outside of Mexico City, which she transformed with traditional Mexican folk-art objects, colonial-era art, religious ex-voto paintings, and native Mexican plants.

Passing through the blue courtyard walls with embellishments in sienna and green, visitors will stroll along lava rock paths lined with flowers, showcasing a variety of important garden plants from Mexico. A scale version of the pyramid at the Casa Azul—originally created to display pre-Hispanic art collected by Kahlo’s husband, famed muralist Diego Rivera—will showcase traditional terra-cotta pots filled with cacti and succulents found in her garden. The exhibition will include a reimagination of Kahlo’s studio that overlooked her garden, as well as the organ pipe cactus fence that is still located at Rivera’s studio in the nearby San Ángel neighborhood of Mexico City. Visitors to the Conservatory will experience the Casa Azul as an expression of Kahlo’s deep connection to the natural world and to Mexico. 

The LuEsther T. Mertz Library’s Art Gallery at the Garden will exhibit 14 of Kahlo’s paintings and works on paper—many borrowed from private collections—highlighting the artist’s use of botanical imagery in her work. Focusing on her lesser-known yet equally spectacular still lifes, as well as works that engage nature in unusually symbolic ways, this grouping of artworks will include Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940); Flower of Life (1944); Still Life with Parrot and Flag (1951); and Self-Portrait Inside a Sunflower (1954).

The Art Gallery exhibition, curated by Dr. Zavala, will introduce visitors to the importance of plants and nature in Kahlo’s paintings and her life. Also on view will be large-scale photographs of the Casa Azul taken by Kahlo’s father, Guillermo Kahlo, who purchased the home, and specialized in views of landmark buildings. These will be complemented by photographs of Kahlo and Rivera, taken by photographers and friends such as Lola Álvarez Bravo, Nickolas Muray, and Emmy Lou Packard.

An installation of specially commissioned artwork by contemporary Artist in Residence, Humberto Spindola, who has been instrumental in curating the current plant collection at the Museo Frida Kahlo, and who specializes in sculptural works in paper inspired by Kahlo and her home, will also be presented. 

The exhibition is accompanied by a 136-page full color book distributed in partnership with DelMonico Books/Prestel. This publication will be available in hardcover and magazine editions from Shop in the Garden. Content includes essays by guest curator Dr. Adriana Zavala, Dr. Kathryn O’Rourke, Dr. Robert Bye, Edelmira Linares, Juan Rafael Coronel Rivera, and others, as well as a fully illustrated painting checklist and a rich assortment of archival and contemporary photographs. 

Tickets and info: http://www.nybg.org/frida/