Frida Kahlo at the Dali to Showcase 60 Works, Extend Outdoors to Avant-Garden

  • ST. PETERSBURG, Florida
  • /
  • September 15, 2016

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Self-Portrait with Small Monkey by Frida Kahlo, 1945 (oil on masonite) and Portrait of Alicia Galant, 1927 (oil on canvas). Collection Museo Dolores Olmedo, Mexico City © 2016 Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico City. Photos © Erik Meza/Javier Otaola.

Frida Kahlo at The Dali showcases the extraordinary career and life of the acclaimed 20th century artist, whose dreamlike work suggests that love and suffering create a new sense of beauty. More than 60 Kahlo pieces are on display at the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, including 15 paintings, seven drawings and numerous personal photographs from the celebrated female artist and influential icon. The exhibition, from Dec. 17, 2016, to April 17, 2017, extends outdoors, where a special collection of flowers and plants representative of those in Kahlo’s own garden at Casa Azul, her home in Mexico, graces the grounds of the Dali's Avant-Garden.

The exhibit is an intriguing exploration of the life of Kahlo, her striking artwork and her fascinating psyche. Together with the exclusive photographs of family, friends and lovers, the exhibition gives a complete view of Kahlo’s world, along with the joys, passions and obsessions of this remarkable artist.

“With her dreamlike images, Kahlo has stirred huge public interest beyond the traditional art audience. In a way, Kahlo created a persona that serves as a contemporary feminine ideal – both tender and fierce,” says Dali Museum Executive Director, Dr. Hank Hine. “Much like Dali, she constructed an eccentric identity through the iconography in her paintings and then dressed and carried herself as the personality she created in her art. Painting by painting, she becomes a heroic figure of struggle and perseverance.”

Kahlo and Dali each created artistic autobiographies and their personalities loom behind their paintings, generating a presence that both shapes and overshadows their works of art. While Kahlo largely rejected the term ‘Surrealism’ and felt that her works were as real as her life, Andre Breton, known as the founder of Surrealism, took great interest in her work and described her painting as a bomb wrapped in a ribbon.

Frida Kahlo at The Dali has been co-organized by The Salvador Dali Museum, St. Petersburg, FL and the Museo Dolores Olmedo, Mexico City. The exhibit also features works from the Vicente Wolf photographic collection. Frida Kahlo at The Dali is curated for The Dali by Dr. Hank Hine and Dr. William Jeffett.


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