As Rivera had encouraged her to exhibit her work, so it was he who, in the summer of 1938, arranged, almost surreptitiously, her first major sale. The purchaser was the film star Edward G. Robinson. Like everyone else with an interest in art and the money to acquire it who visited Mexico, he, with his wife, Gladys, had come to Rivera’s studio. “I kept about twenty-eight paintings hidden,” Frida remembered. “While I was on the roof terrace with Mrs. Robinson, Diego showed him my paintings and Robinson bought four of them from me for two hundred dollars each. For me it was such a surprise that I marveled and said: ’This way I am going to be able to be free, I’ll be able to travel and do what I want without asking Diego for money.’ ”
It was in April 1938 that the Surrealist poet and essayist André Breton first saw Frida’s work. Breton was in his heyday. Noble and leonine in appearance, articulate, world famous, he was the “pope of Surrealism,” a movement he more than anyone else had created. He had been sent to Mexico by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs to give some lectures. Pleased to leave France at a time when war seemed imminent, he wanted to make contact with Trotsky (Breton had joined the Communist party briefly in 1928 and then attacked it publicly after he broke with it in the early 1930s), but what was foremost in his mind was to explore a land that he discovered to be, as he had predicted, the “Surrealist place par excellence." The following year, he wrote: “I find the Surrealist Mexico in its relief, in its flora, in its dynamism conferred on it by the mixture of its races, as also in its highest aspiration.” He observed all this sur-réalité on trips with the Riveras to the environs of Mexico City, to Guadalajara (June 1938), and to churches in the vicinity of the capital. (Trotsky occasionally accompanied him. On one trip, he became incensed when Breton stole retablos from a church wall. To the Frenchman, these ex-votos were Surrealist treasures. To the Russian, for all his Marxist ideology, they were religious icons.)
Breton and his strikingly beautiful wife, Jacqueline, stayed first with Lupe Marín and then, for their remaining months in Mexico, with the Riveras at San Angel. Although Frida had anticipated his arrival with excitement—Jean van Heijenoort had told her how handsome he was—she did not take to him. His theorizing and manifesto making seemed to her pretentious, feckless, and boring, and she was put off by his vanity and arrogance. But Jacqueline, who was a painter like herself, had a more sprightly intelligence, which amused and delighted Frida; they became intimate friends.
In July, the Bretons, the Riveras, and the Trotskys traveled to Pátzcuaro in Michoacán, a graceful town of cobblestone streets, large plazas, and low white houses with carved wooden pillars and tiled roofs. Their intention was to make excursions to the little villages around Lake Pátzcuaro during the day and to have conversations about art and politics in the evenings. They planned to publish these talks under the title “Conversations in Pátzcuaro.” (During the first evening of “conversation,” Trotsky dominated, expounding his theory that in the Communist society of the future, there would be no division between art and life. People would decorate their own houses, but there would be no professional easel painters catering to the tastes of private patrons.)
Not surprisingly, Frida and Jacqueline were not participants in these discussions. Frida was glad to be excluded; she hated official or organized talks and found politics on the plane of abstract theory wearisome. At Pátzcuaro, the two women sat in a corner and played games—such Surrealist games as cadavre exquis and the rather more innocent Mexican hand games Frida remembered from her childhood. “We acted like two pupils of a school,” says Jacqueline Breton, “because Trotsky was very strict. For example, we could not smoke. He told us that women shouldn’t smoke. Frida lit a cigarette anyway. She knew he would say something, so we left the room to smoke outside. We both loved Trotsky. He exaggerated and was very old-fashioned.”
Though Frida scorned Breton, Breton was entranced by Frida, and his pleasure increased when he saw her paintings. He not only offered to organize an exhibition for her in Paris, following her New York debut; he also wrote a flattering, if somewhat rhetorical, essay for the brochure of the Julien Levy show. In it, he proclaimed Frida to be a self-created Surrealist:
My surprise and joy were unbounded when I discovered, on my arrival in Mexico, that her work had blossomed forth, in her latest paintings, into pure surreality, despite the fact that it had been conceived without any prior knowledge whatsoever of the ideas motivating the activities of my friends and myself. Yet at this present point in the development of Mexican painting, which since the beginning of the nineteenth century has remained largely free from foreign influence and profoundly attached to its own resources, I was witnessing here, at the other end of the earth, a spontaneous outpouring of our own questioning spirit: what irrational laws do we obey, what subjective signals allow us to establish the right direction at any moment, which symbols and myths predominate in a particular conjunction of objects or web of happenings, what meaning can be ascribed to the eye’s capacity to pass from visual power to visionary power? . . .
This art even contains that drop of cruelty and humor uniquely capable of blending the rare effective powers that compound together to form the philtre which is Mexico’s secret. The power of inspiration here is nourished by the strange ecstasies of puberty and the mysteries of generation, and, far from considering these to be the mind’s private preserves, as in some colder climates, she displays them proudly with a mixture of candour and insolence. . . .
Early in October, after an exuberant going-away party, Frida left for New York in high spirits. Her forthcoming show and the recent sale of the four paintings to Edward G. Robinson bolstered her self-assurance and independence. She was “feeling her oats.” Indeed, she led friends like Noguchi and Julien Levy to believe that she was separated from Diego, that she was “fed up” with him and was “living her own life.” Levy, who was one of the various men to fall under Frida’s spell at this time, remembered that “she acted as a free agent vis-à-vis other men. She professed not to care about Diego’s other girl friends, and used to tell me dispassionately about a girl friend of Diego’s who was also a friend of hers. She wanted to give me the impression that she missed Diego, but didn’t love him anymore. Sometimes she’d talk about him in a sort of masochistic way, and sometimes as if he were her darling slave whom she couldn’t abide. ’That old fat pig—he’d do anything for me,’ she said. ’I’ll tell him what to do, but he’s so repulsive.’ And at other times she’d say, ’He’s just a doll. I’m so lonesome for him. In a funny way, I just adore him.’ It was all double talk, depending on her own mixed feelings.”
Whatever the state of her marriage, there is no question that Frida was worried about leaving Diego alone in Mexico, and he was concerned that everything should go well for her in New York. He gave her advice and letters of introduction to important people—among them Clare Boothe Luce, then managing editor of Vanity Fair and hostess to a sophisticated circle of artists and intellectuals. In a letter to Frida dated December 3, 1938, he wrote: “You ought to do a portrait of Mrs. Luce even if she doesn’t order it from you. Ask her to pose for you and you will get a chance to speak with her. Read her plays—it seems that they are very interesting—it may be that they will suggest to you a composition for her portrait. I think it would be a very interesting subject. Her life . . . is extremely curious; it would interest you.” Rivera also wrote about Frida’s forthcoming exhibition to his friend Sam A. Lewisohn, a collector and the author of Painters and Personality, which included an essay on Rivera: “I recommend her to you, not as a husband but as an enthusiastic admirer of her work, acid and tender, hard as steel and delicate and fine as a butterfly’s wing, loveable as a beautiful smile, and profound and cruel as the bitterness of life.”
Among Frida’s papers is a handwritten list, drawn up by or with Diego, of potential guests to invite to her opening. The names are those of old friends as well as powerful or famous acquaintances. They include artists, dealers, collectors, museum pe
ople, critics, writers, publishers, political activists, and millionaires: Ben Shahn, Walter and Magda Pach, Pascal Covici, Sam A. Lewisohn, Mrs. Charles Liebman, Peggy Bacon, A. S. Baylinson, Alfred Stieglitz, Lewis Mumford, Meyer Schapiro, Suzanne Lafollette, Niles Spencer, George Biddle, Stuart Chase, Van Wyck Brooks, John Sloan, Gaston Lachaise, Holger Cahill, Dorothy Miller, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Miss Adelaide Milton de Groot, Mrs. Edith G. Halpert, Henry R. Luce, Mr. and Mrs. William Paley, E. Weyhe, Carl Zigrosser, Dr. Christian Brinton, and George Grosz. Mr. and Mrs. Nelson A. Rockefeller and Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller are on the list too. Clearly Rivera saw fit to forgive his old antagonist and so did Frida.
“A painter in her own right” became Frida’s suffix in New York—just as Diego was invariably referred to as el muy distinguido pintor in Mexico. Yet there is no question that being the wife of Diego Rivera added to the sensation of Frida’s show. Even Breton’s catalogue essay introduced Frida as the beautiful and pernicious butterfly who accompanied her monstrous Marxist husband. Nor did the gallery hesitate to make mileage out of her link with Rivera. The press release, for example, said:
An exhibition of paintings by Frida Kahlo (FRIDA RIVERA) opens Tuesday, November 1st, at the JULIEN LEVY GALLERY, 15 East 57th St. Frida Kahlo is the wife of Diego Rivera, but in this, her first exhibition, she proves herself a significant and intriguing painter in her own right. Frida Kahlo was born in Coyoacara [sic] (a suburb of Mexico City) in 1910. In 1926 she was the victim of a serious motor accident (the psychological effects of which may be noted in her subsequent painting). Bedridden for some time, she started to paint with a primitive but meticulous technique, both her transient and her most personal thoughts of the moment. In 1929 she became the third wife of Diego Rivera who encouraged her subsequent painting, and last year she met the surrealist, André Breton, who enthusiastically praised her work. She herself writes, “I never knew I was a Surrealist until André Breton came to Mexico and told me I was one. I myself still don’t know what I am.”
As an actual fact, her paintings combine a native Mexican quality which is naive, an unusual, female frankness and intimacy, and a sophistication which is the surrealist element. The paintings are in the Mexican tradition, painted on metal, and framed in charming Mexican peasant frames of glass and tin. The work of this newcomer is decidedly important and threatens even the laurels of her distinguished husband. The exhibition will continue for two weeks until November 15th.
At her opening, Frida looked spectacular in her Mexican costume—a perfect complement to the paintings decked out in folkloric frames. The crowd was large and animated, for in those days there were few art galleries and even fewer avant-garde galleries, and an opening like Frida’s was a great event. Levy remembers that Noguchi and Clare Luce were full of excitement about the show, and that Georgia O’Keeffe and many other art world luminaries were there. None of them had ever seen anything quite like the group of twenty-five paintings on display.
The catalogue listed these titles:
1.Between the Curtains (Self-Portrait dedicated to Trotsky)
2.Fulang Chang and Myself
3.The Square Is Theirs (Four Inhabitants of Mexico)
4.I with My Nurse
5.They Ask for Planes and Only Get Straw Wings
6.I Belong to My Owner
7.My Family (My Grandparents, My Parents and I)
8.The Heart (Memory)
9.My Dress Was There Hanging
10.What the Water Gave Me
11.Ixcuhintle Dog with Me
12.Pitahayas
13.Tunas
14.Food From the Earth
15.Remembrance of an Open Wound
16.The Lost Desire (Henry Ford Hospital)
17.Birth
18.Dressed Up for Paradise
19.She Plays Alone
20.Passionately in Love
21.Burbank—American Fruit Maker
22.Xochitl
23.The Frame
24.Eye
25.Survivor
On the whole, the press was delighted with the paintings and with their creator. Time magazine reported in its Art section that the “flutter of the week in Manhattan was caused by the first exhibition of paintings by famed muralist Diego Rivera’s German-Mexican wife, Frida Kahlo. Too shy to show her work before, black-browed little Frida has been painting since 1926, when an automobile smashup put her in a plaster cast, ’bored as hell.’ ” The Time reviewer found Breton’s description of Frida’s work as “a ribbon around a bomb” to be a “fairly exact, if flattering figure. Little Frida’s pictures, mostly painted in oil on copper, had the daintiness of miniatures, the vivid reds and yellows of Mexican tradition and the playfully bloody fancy of an unsentimental child.”
The patronizing tone—“little Frida"!—was implicit in other criticisms as well. A few were unfavorable. Howard Devree of The New York Times (probably referring to My Birth and Henry Ford Hospital) complained that some of Frida’s subjects were “more obstetrical than aesthetic.” Another critic quibbled about the pretentiousness of printing Breton’s essay in the brochure in the original French rather than in translation, and carped at the way “Mrs. Diego Rivera . . . should insist on using her maiden name, Frida Kahlo (and then put her husband’s name beside it in parenthesis).” Actually, we know from Bertram Wolfe that Frida used her maiden name precisely because she did not wish to ride on Rivera’s fame; surely it was Levy and Breton who “insisted” on the parentheses.
Frida herself had no complaints about the exhibition and she was pleased by the attention. The day of her opening she wrote to Alejandro Gómez Arias:
On the very day of my exhibition I want to chat with you even if only this little bit.
Everything was arranged a las mil maravillas [marvelously] and I really have terrific luck. The crowd here treats me with great affection and they are all very kind. Levy did not want to translate A. Breton’s preface and that is the only thing that seems to me to be a little unfortunate since it seems rather pretentious, but now there is nothing to be done about it! How does it seem to you? The gallery is terrific, and they arranged the paintings very well. Did you see Vogue? There are three reproductions, one in color—the one that seemed the best. Write to me if you remember me sometime. I will be here two or three weeks more. I love you very much.
Frida later said that her show sold out. She exaggerated. The truth is that only about half the paintings sold, which was impressive enough, considering that these were Depression years. (Sold before the opening, of course, were the four paintings owned by Edward G. Robinson, who lent them to Levy for the exhibit. The Self-Portrait dedicated to Trotsky belonged to Trotsky. Levy may have exhibited other privately owned paintings as well.) The gallery records have been misplaced, but Levy recalled that a psychiatrist, the late Dr. Allan Roos, purchased My Grandparents, My Parents and I out of the show. Sam Lewisohn bought a still life—almost certainly I Belong to My Owner. Frida sold a few works without Levy’s help—possibly, Levy believed, one to the great collector Chester Dale, who adored Frida, and played the role of “grandpa or good daddy” toward her, paying for at least one of her operations and delighting in the way she teased him. Mary Schapiro (who by this time had married Solomon Sklar) bought Tunas from the exhibition, and Frida gave her Fulang-Chang and I. Photographer Nickolas Muray bought What the Water Gave Me. Remembrance of an Open Wound was acquired by the prominent industrialist Edgar J. Kaufmann, Sr., commissioner of Frank Lloyd Wright’s recently completed, and soon to be famous, house called Fallingwater, at Bear Run, Pennsylvania. Frida said that art critic Walter Pach (an old friend of the Riveras), purchased a painting from the show. And if some paintings remained unsold, the show did stimulate future sales. Clare Boothe Luce did not, as Rivera had hoped, commission Frida to paint her portrait, but she did commission a commemorative portrait of her friend the actress Dorothy Hale, who had just committed suicide, and in 1940 she purchased the Self-Portrait dedicated to Trotsky. It is said that Frida received a co
mmission to do a portrait of the famous actress Katharine Cornell at this time, but she never did it. Conger Goodyear fell in love with Fulang-Chang and I; since it already belonged to Mary Sklar, he commissioned Frida to paint a similar self-portrait, which he said he would give to the Museum of Modern Art but instead kept until his death, when it formed part of his bequest to the Albright Knox Museum. She sat in her hotel room at the Barbizon-Plaza, and within a week produced Self-Portrait with Monkey for him.
Frida was indifferent to being lionized, but it must have been gratifying to be swept up in a social whirl even though she was unaccompanied by her celebrated spouse. A personality to reckon with, she did not need to move in Diego’s broad, bubbling wake, and it was exhilarating to deploy her considerable—if eccentric—social graces on her own, to see how many people she could charm.
Manhattan was a carnival. She did not do much painting, though she had a sketchbook in which she sometimes drew (or planned to draw) things that caught her attention. “I did that . . .” or “I will do that in my sketchbook,” she would say. Nor did she frequent museums. Julien Levy recalled that someone took her to the Museum of Modern Art, but she complained about the difficulty of walking. She wrote to Alejandro Gómez Arias: “In a private collection of painting I saw two marvels, a Piero della Francesca that seemed to me to be the most fantastic in the world and a little El Greco, the smallest that I have seen, but the most wonderful of all. I will send you reproductions.” What she loved to do was sit in the Hotel Saint Moritz’s sidewalk café and watch people pass by against the backdrop of Central Park. Store windows held her enthralled. And she delighted in the varied street life of New York—the exoticism of Chinatown, Little Italy, Broadway, Harlem. Wherever she went she caused a sensation. Julien Levy remembered a visit to the Central Hanover Bank on Fifth Avenue: “Arriving inside the bank with her, I found we were surrounded by a flock of children who had followed us, despite all protests of the doorman. ’Where is the circus?’ they were calling. ’Fiesta’ would have been more accurate. Frida was dressed in full Mexican costume. She was beautiful and picturesque but sadly she did not wear bouffant-skirted native costumes for effect. ’I must have full skirts and long [she said], now that my sick leg is so ugly.’ ”
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