247“You know, I’m a bit of an anarchist”: van Heijenoort, private interview.
247“vainglorious gesture”: Payne, Trotsky, p. 409.
247Trotsky . . . took steps to limit his influence: van Heijenoort, private interview. van Heijenoort recalls that “the Mexican Trotskyite group was very small and it was divided into factions. All the members were very poor except Diego who had a lot of money. Thus he could impose his will on the others. If, for example, the group wanted to print a poster for something and Diego was in agreement with it, he would contribute money. If he decided that he did not like the project, he would hold back. This created chaos in the organization. Diego had the ambition to be actively involved in politics. He had a kind of guilt about just painting. Trotsky said several times: ’You are a painter, you have your work. Just help them, but do your own work’ ” (also, Trotsky, Writings [1938–1939], “Necessary Statement,” Jan. 4, 1939.) The International Secretariat and the founding conference of the Fourth International resolved that Rivera should “not be a member of the reconstituted organization” but instead should work directly under the “control of the International Secretariat” (van Heijenoort, Trotsky in Exile, p. 133).
247[Rivera] wrote Breton a letter: van Heijenoort, Trotsky in Exile, pp. 136–37.
247Trotsky stated to the Mexican press: Deutscher, Prophet Outcast, pp. 444–45.
248“We here are all very happy”: Trotsky, Writings (1938–1939), p. 276–79.
249Rivera refused: Diego Rivera, “Rivera Still Admires Trotsky: Regrets Their Views Clashed,” New York Times, Apr. 15, 1939. According to Rivera, when Trotsky sent 200 pesos as rent payment, Rivera took this as an affront and would have rejected the money had he not been told that if he did, Trotsky would move his belongings out into the street. In the end, Rivera took the money and gave it to the Trotskyite magazine Clave, to which both he and Trotsky had contributed. In the New York Times article, Rivera said that his own letter to Breton had precipitated the incident with Trotsky, that he had left the Fourth International in order not to embarrass Trotsky. “The incident between Trotsky and myself is not a quarrel. It is a lamentable misunderstanding.” Rivera called Trotsky “a great man . . . the man who, together with Lenin, gave victory to the proletariat of Russia,” but he felt that Trotsky’s circumstances and sorrows had made him “more and more difficult despite his huge reserve of goodness and generosity. I regret that fate should have decreed that I should collide against that difficult side of his nature. But my dignity as a man precluded my doing anything to avoid it.”
249He left behind . . . a pen: van Heijenoort, Trotsky in Exile, p. 27.
249[Frida] denied Rivera’s demand: Wolfe, Fabulous Life of Diego Rivera, p. 396.
249“ absolutely impossible”: Bambi, “Frida Kahlo Es una Mitád.”
249[Frida] recalled meeting . . . Ramón Mercader: Ibid.
250the story “Mornard” told: Maria Craipeau, “Jai Connu l’Assassin de Trotsky," France Observateur, May 19, 1960, p. 12. Translated from the French by the author.
250“ if the show will be a successful one”: This and the following quotation are from Frida’s letter to Nickolas Muray, Feb. 27, 1939.
250She canceled a London exhibition: In the Frida Kahlo archive, Frida Kahlo Museum, is a letter dated May 3, 1939, from Peggy Guggenheim: “I hope by now you are home safe and sound and that all your European troubles are over. It was a great disappointment to me that you did not come to London. Also I am very sad not to have the pleasure of showing your paintings here. I wear your beautiful earrings and they are greatly admired, and I like them better than any I have. The gallery closes here the end of June and next fall I hope the Modern Museum of Art will start in London in its stead. The Breton show gets more and more complicated. God knows how it will end.” Some years later, Peggy Guggenheim did have a chance to exhibit a 1940 Self-Portrait by Frida.
250Jacqueline Breton recalls . . . the opening: Jacqueline Breton,’private interview.
251a favorable review in La Flèche: L. P. Foucaud, “L’Exposition de Frida Kahlo," La Flèche, March 1939. Clipping in the Frida Kahlo archive. Translation from the French by the author.
251Diego, naturally, had the most to say: Rivera, My Art, My Life, p. 224.
251Picasso gave Frida a pair of earrings: Sklar, private interview. These must be the earrings that Frida wears in an extraordinary Self-Portrait drawing done in 1946.
251He also taught her a Spanish song: Packard, private interview.
CHAPTER 16: WHAT THE WATER GAVE ME
254“I never knew I was a Surrealist”: Wolfe, “Rise of Another Rivera,” p. 64.
254Breton’s definition of Surrealism: William S. Rubin, Dada and Surrealist Art (New York: Abrams, 1969), p. 121.
255Miguel Covarrubias . . . categorized her as a Surrealist: Museum of Modern Art, Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art (New York, Museum of Modern Art, and Mexico City, Instituto de Antropología y Historia, 1940), p. 141.
255“I adore surprise”: Rodríguez, “Frida Kahlo, Expresionista,” p. 68.
256the inaugural fiesta “had the character”: Rodríguez Prampolini, El Surrealismo pp. 55-56, quotes Mexican critic Ramón Gaya’s “Divagaciones en Torno al Surrealismo.”
256Thoughtful reviewers noticed: Ibid.
256“spiritual ingenuousness”: Luis G. Basurto, Jr., “Crítica de Arte,” an article in two parts published in Excelsior in January or February 1940. Undated newspaper clipping, Isolda Kahlo, personal archive.
256[Frida] herself commented: Letter to Nickolas Muray dated January 1940.
256she sent two paintings: Curiously, given their pride in their Mexican heritage, Frida and Diego were listed among the European participants rather than with the Mexicans (Catalogue of “International Exhibition of Surrealism,” Galería de Arte Mexicano, 1940). It is said that this categorization had to do with the fact that both Riveras had had exhibitions outside Mexico and their reputations were international in scope. Another possible explanation is that at this particular moment they felt Mexican art should be less nationalistic and more open to foreign currents. In any case, neither was (then) averse to association with contemporary trends abroad.
256dominance of the Mexican muralist movement: Rodríguez Prampolini, El Surrealismo, p. 44.
256Mexico had its own magic and myths: Ibid., p. 95. Rodríguez Prampolini argues that Mexican artists reject abstraction or “pure art,” and cling to the real, because of the “insecurity and ambivalence” in which they live; moreover, they want their art to transmit a message. The Mexican has a magic sense of life and an animistic perception of concrete reality. Thus, she says, there is no opposition between subject and object, between conscious and subconscious, between the symbol and the thing symbolized.
257a painting she said had special importance: Levy and van Heijenoort, private interviews.
257Like something in a horror movie: Perhaps Frida was influenced here by the insects and blood in Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali’s Surrealist film Un Chien Andalou, which was shown in Mexico City during Breton’s visit in 1938, when she was working on What the Water Gave Me.
258"What the Water Yields Me illustrated”: Breton, Surrealism and Painting, p. 144.
259paradigm of Surrealism described by. . . Lautréamont: Rubin, Dada and Surrealist Art, p. 36. Isidore Ducasse (the “Count of Lautréamont"), who died in 1870 at the age of twenty-four, was considered by the Surrealists to be their precursor.
259“It’s quite explicit”: Levy, private interview.
260Diego argued that Frida was a “realist”: Rivera, “Frida Kahlo y el Arte Mexicano,” p. 101.
261“Surrealism . . . is the magical surprise”: Frida Kahlo, diary.
261“I use Surrealism as a means of poking fun”: O’Gorman, “Frida Kahlo.”
261A piece that was surely hers: Gómez Arias, private interview.
262“The trouble with El Señor Breton”: Private interview with a friend of Frida’s who wished to
remain anonymous.
262“Though André Breton”: Wolfe, “Rise of Another Rivera,” pp. 64, 131.
262Parker Lesley wrote her: Letter from Parker Lesley, Frida Kahlo archive. The article was not published.
262“painter deeply rooted in reality”: Rodríguez, “Frida Kahlo: Heroína del Dolor,” p. 4.
262“Frida’s work, instead of wanderings”: Rodríguez, “Frida Kahlo, Expresionista,” p. 68.
262“the cock was crowing”: Levy, private interview.
263“Some critics have tried to classify me”: Frida’s letter is quoted in Antonio Rodríguez, “Frida Abjura del Surrealismo.”
266“They thought I was a Surrealist”: Time, “Mexican Autobiography,” Apr. 27, 1953.
CHAPTER 17: A NECKLACE OF THORNS
269“Dear, Dear Frida”: Nickolas Muray, letter to Frida Kahlo. This and the following letter, both undated, are in an envelope postmarked May 16, 1939, in the Frida Kahlo archive.
270One friend recalls: Private interview with a Mexican friend of Frida Kahlo’s who wishes not to be identified.
272Others say Rivera was impotent: Gómez Robleda, private interview.
273Frida once blamed Lupe Marín: Frida said this in a letter to a friend who wishes to remain anonymous.
273“When Frida was good for nothing anymore”: Marín, private interview. The painting is illustrated in Wolfe, Diego Rivera, fig. 69.
273Another theory is: Private interview with an old friend of Frida’s who did not wish to be identified.
273Jean van Heijenoort thinks: van Heijenoort, Trotsky in Exile, p. 141.
273a rumor that Rivera was planning to marry . . . Irene Bohus: El Universal, Oct. 19, 1939, newspaper clipping in Bertram D. Wolfe archive, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
273Rivera is widely believed to have been romantically involved with Paulette Goddard: Rivera himself intimated as much in My Art, My Life, p. 228.
273New York’s Herald Tribune noted: Rivera quoted in an Oct. 19, 1939, newspaper clipping in Bertram D. Wolfe archive.
273“There is no change”: Time, Oct. 30, 1939, p. 44.
273“artistic difference”: New York Herald Tribune, Oct. 20, 1939, newspaper clipping, in Bertram D. Wolfe archive.
273“This is the tenth year of their marriage”: Bertram D. Wolfe, Diego Rivera, His Life and Times, p. 394.
274“Tell Bert that”: Wolfe, Fabulous Life of Diego Rivera, p. 361.
274“no trouble, no fuss”: El Universal clipping, Oct. 19, 1939.
274“We have been separated for five months”: Ibid. See also Art Digest 14 (Nov. 1, 1939), p. 8.
274Firestone wrote to Diego: Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, correspondence with Sigmund Firestone, 1940–41. The letters are now in the possession of Mr. and Mrs. Philip M. Liebschutz, Rochester, New York. (Mrs. Liebschutz is Sigmund Firestone’s daughter.)
Firestone had to wait a long time for his pair of self-portraits, for Rivera was busy. In July he wrote a rather tart letter to Diego saying that he had received a catalogue of the art exhibition that appeared in the Palace of Fine Arts during the Golden Gate International Exhibition in San Francisco. To his complete surprise, the catalogue illustrated the Self-Portrait Frida had painted for but not delivered to him. The painting was listed as lent by himself. (Other works by Frida in the show were Four Inhabitants of Mexico, Fruits of the Earth, and Pitahayas.) It was wrong, Firestone pointed out, for Diego not to fulfill his end of the agreement, because Frida needed her share of the money, which he agreed to pay as soon as he was in receipt of both self-portraits. When Firestone received Frida’s Self-Portrait, he wrote her that it was “lovely” but quibbled: “It is an excellent reproduction of yourself when in a pensive mood. Why didn’t you smile a bit? The only criticism I have is that the canvas is too small. The figure looks crowded inside the frame. . . . I am enclosing a check for $150.00 and as soon as I receive Diego’s portrait to match yours, as we decided in Mexico City, I will forward the balance to be divided as you wish.”
A letter from Frida to Firestone (postmarked Nov. 1, 1940) thanked him for the payment and said: “Sigy, I would like to ask you a favor. I don’t know if it is too much trouble for you. Could you send me the one hundred dollars balance of my painting here because I need them badly, and I promise you that as soon as I go to San Francisco I will make Diego send to you his self portrait. I am sure he will do it with great pleasure, it is only a question of time.” Firestone complied. On December 9 Frida wrote: “I am very happy and proud because you like my portrait, it is not beautiful but I made it with a great pleasure for you.” Finally, on January 31, 1941, Rivera wrote to Firestone that his self-portrait was finished and on its way. Firestone’s next letter was duly appreciative: “It is excellent and perfect in every way. . . . Up to now I was in love with Frida’s portrait. With your fine painting along side I must double my admiration because both are excellent, very much cherished and valued by Alberta and me.”
275“No one paid any attention”: Lesley, private interview, New York City, June 1978.
275She “loved the minuet”: Kaufmann, private interview.
275Spanish refugee Ricardo Arias Viñas: Gómez Arias, private interviews.
All that we know about this man comes from a letter Frida wrote to Edsel B. Ford on December 6, 1939, asking him to help her lover get a job with the Ford Motor Company in Mexico; there is a draft in the Frida Kahlo archive, Frida Kahlo Museum:
I am sure you must receive thousands of bothering letters. I feel really ashamed to send you one more, but I beg you to forgive me, because it is the first time I do so, and because I hope that what I will ask you, won’t cause you too much trouble.
It is only to explain to you the special case of a very dear friend of mine, who was for many years a Ford’s dealer in Gerona, Cataluña, and who for the circumstances of the recent war in Spain came to Mexico. His name is Ricardo Arias Viñas, he is now thirty-four years old. He worked for Ford Motor Co., for almost 10 years, he has a letter given by the European Central (Essex) which guarantees his actuation as a Ford worker, this letter is addressed to your plant in Buenos Aires. Also Mr. Ubach, the subdirector of your plant in Barcelona could give any kind of information about Mr. Arias. During the war, taking advantage of his charge as chief of transportation of Cataluña, he could get back to your factories several hundred units which were stolen at the beginning of the movement.
His problem is this, he couldn’t go directly to Buenos Aires on account of economical difficulties, so he would like to stay here in Mexico and work in your plant. I am sure that Mr. Lajous your manager here, would give him a job knowing all about his experience and good acceptance as a Ford worker, but in order to avoid any difficulties I would appreciate very much if you were so kind just to send me a note which Mr. Arias could present to Mr. Lajous as a recommendation directly from you. That would facilitate enormously his entrance in the plant. He doesn’t belong to any political party, so I imagine there is no difficulty for him to get this job and work honestly. I really would appreciate of you this big favor and hope there won’t be much trouble for you in accepting my petition. Let me thank you in advance for anything you can so kindly do in this case.
276she was drinking: Begun, medical record.
276to Wolfgang Paalen, she wrote: Frida Kahlo, letter to Wolfgang Paalen, Dec. 6, 1939. A copy of this letter is in the Frida Kahlo archive, Frida Kahlo Museum.
276“I don’t see anybody”: The letter is dated simply January 1940 and is postmarked January 11.
277“I never was”: Rivera, My Art, My Life, pp. 225–26.
277“I had tea with Frida Kahlo”: Helm, Modern Mexican Painters, pp. 167–68.
278“I began painting it three months ago”: El Universal clipping, Oct. 19, 1939.
279“duality of her personality”: Dolores Alvarez Bravo, private interview, Mexico City, September 1974.
280"la pintora mas pintor”: Rivera, “Frida Kahlo y el Arte Mexicano,” p. 101.
&
nbsp; 280Levy said: Levy, private interview.
280The Wounded Table: According to Frida’s student Arturo García Bustos, this painting was part of a group of Mexican paintings given to a museum in Russia during the 1940s (García Bustos, private interview).
281the Judas . . . on top of her bed’s canopy: The skeleton with its head resting on two pillows appears in a photograph taken in 1940 by Emmy Lou Packard.
282in Mexico, hummingbirds: Nancy Breslow, “Frida Kahlo: A Cry of Joy and Pain,” Americas 32 (March 1980): 33–39. Breslow also quotes Fernando Gamboa, former director of Mexico City’s Museum of Modern Art, as saying that the hummingbird was a pre-Columbian symbol of resurrection, as were the butterflies and thorns with which Frida has adorned herself in the 1940 Self-Portrait. That Frida identified with the hummingbird is certain, for friends compared her with one. Mrs. Eddie Albert, the wife of the movie actor, recalled her impression of Frida at a luncheon at the Covarrubias’s house around 1943: “She had the quality of a hummingbird—a quick mind and swift but lovely movements. She was very beautiful and vulnerable” (Margot Albert, private interview, July 1978, Cuernavaca, Mexico).
283the Aztecs . . . pricked their own skin: Anita Brenner, Idols Behind Altars, p. 138.
283almost every Mexican church has frighteningly veristic Christ: In The Mexican Mural Renaissance (pp. 15–16), the muralist Jean Chariot made this observation about Mexican religious art: “A sublayer of Aztec ritual blood letting plus a layer of Spanish asceticism do not build up to squeamish prettiness. Coming late, the saint had to prove his mettle at least as impressively as had the pagan zealot. If the latter threaded a knotted rope through his tongue in guise of a prayer, the newcomer had to go him one better to earn his welcome.” Thus, said Charlot, Mexican religious art “overruled the rules of good taste in its desire to stir, to expostulate and to convert.”
285One story has it that Frida warned Diego: Private interview with Frida’s Spanish lover, who wishes to remain anonymous.
285she is dressed in a man’s suit: Frida’s donning men’s clothes in this painting makes one think of the French painter Rosa Bonheur (1822–1899), who chose male attire to disguise her sex when she sketched from life at horse fairs and cattle markets, and of the American painter Romaine Brooks (1874–1970), whose self-portraits in men’s clothes reveal a similar rejection of femininity as well as a strong note of lesbianism. According to Frida’s friend Annette Nancarrow (private interview), Frida cut off her hair and wore men’s clothes to assert her identity as an independent person dedicated to a career. “It was,” says Mrs. Nancarrow, “a denial of her more passive role as wife and well-dressed woman.” But while it is true that Frida wore blue jeans for working and made an issue about supporting herself through her painting, it seems unlikely that she had such consciously feminist motives for adopting men’s clothes.
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