Mexican Modernism

Diego Rivera, Sunflowers, 1943, oil on canvas, 90 x 130 cm, 35 ½” x 51 ¼”

Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and their compatriots come to the Museum

FRIDA KAHLO, DIEGO RIVERA, AND MEXICAN MODERNISM features more than 150 artworks from the Jacques and Natasha Gelman collection. Most of the works were created in the era directly following the Mexican Revolution. Frida Kahlo’s intimate self-portraits, Diego Rivera’s organic modernist works, folk dresses representative of the period, and the works of some of Kahlo’s and Rivera’s contemporaries are included. The exhibition offers a sense of Frida, Diego, and some of the artists and people in their lives. Frida and Diego’s distinctive personalities are featured alongside a close look at this pivotal moment in Mexican history.

Mexican Modernism, defined as the period from the 1910s to the 1940s, is perhaps best known for muralism. Works of Mexican muralists David Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco, and Diego Rivera are emblematic of this period, as Mexican Modernists expressed pride in indigenous Mexican cultural traditions and the abstract styles gaining popularity in Europe at the

ON VIEW

FRIDA KAHLO, DIEGO RIVERA, AND MEXICAN MODERNISM

February 6 – May 2, 2021

Nickolas Muray, Frida Kahlo on Bench #5, 1939, Carbro print, 45.5 x 36 cm, 17 15/16” x 14 3/16”, © Nickolas Muray Photo Archives Diego Rivera, Portrait of Natasha Gelman, 1943, oil on canvas, 115 x 153 cm, 45 ¼” x 60 ¼”

time. These muralists were engaging with politics and culture in a way that defined Mexican identity as rooted in the people, land, and traditions of Mexico.

Photography features prominently in the exhibition. Photographers from the United States and Europe came to Mexico City during this time of rapid cultural evolution, changing the photographic focus from commercial or documentary to fine art. From this influx of talent emerged Lola Álvarez Bravo, one of Mexico’s most influential photographers. Like many females of the time, Álvarez Bravo was overshadowed in her early career by her famous photographer husband, Manuel, whose work is also in the exhibition.

Álvarez Bravo met Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera through her husband, who already traveled in the couple’s sphere of influence. It wasn’t until the Bravos separated in 1939 that Lola began to make a name for herself. She worked as a photojournalist, illustrating Mexico’s shifting society. Among her works in the exhibition is Frida Kahlo’s Death Portrait, as well as images of Kahlo painting in galleries, in hospital beds, and among her peers. Álvarez Bravo also created abstract, almost painterly images, such as Burial at Yalalag and The Dream of the Drowned, which marry shapes and light with documentary elements. She also photographed for political propaganda and produced large-scale photomontages for government and corporate buildings.

The Center for Creative Photography, which holds the Lola Álvarez Bravo archive, writes that her images of Mexican life place her among the renowned photographers of the period, including Edward Weston, who lived in Mexico City from 1923 to 1926. Álvarez Bravo owned a gallery from 1951 to 1958, and presented Kahlo’s work in 1953, the artist’s only solo show during her lifetime.

In a 1982 interview, Álvarez Bravo said: “I don’t have great artistic pretensions, but

Nickolas Muray, Frida with Red "Rebozo," 1939, Carbro print, 25 x 20.3 cm, © Nickolas Muray Photo Archives, 9 7/8” x 8”

FRIDA AND FRIENDS

PORTRAITS OF FRIDA KAHLO sometimes show her with a Xoloitzcuintli dog (Xolo), a hairless Mexican breed said to have originated 3500 years ago. It’s one of many animals that appear with Kahlo, both in self-portraits and others’ works. The Xoloitzcuintli dogs frequently take shape in Mesoamerican art, says Albuquerque artist Catalina Delgado-Trunk, who notes that smaller Xolos were sacrificial animals. Xolos were also sometimes eaten and considered medicinal because their body temperature is 10 degrees warmer than normal. Although deeply embedded in Mexican lore, the dogs faced extinction around the Mexican Revolution, says Delgado-Trunk, who is from Mexico City. “The Mexican Revolution brought a renewed interest in moviemiento indigena [indigenous movement]. We have deep roots in high civilizations prior to the Spaniards’ arrival.”

In the 1940s and 1950s, an effort was made to bring back the Xolo, and Delgado-Trunk’s mother was among those involved in breeding them. “These were the dogs we grew up with. We lived in Coyoacán, several blocks from Kahlo and Rivera. My father was a big fan of Rivera’s. We would go see him painting his murals, and through the dogs, he befriended my mother, who gave him Xolo dogs.”

Both Kahlo and Rivera were proud of their Mesoamerican heritage. Delgado-Trunk, who was a young girl at the time, says that interest in heritage made the dogs attractive to the couple. The most famous of Kahlo’s dogs was Señor Xolotl. He is depicted in the lower right corner of The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), Myself, Diego and Señor Xolotl.

Delgado-Trunk recently donated one of her works to the Albuquerque Museum. She uses a cut paper technique—papel picado—and her work illustrates the stories, myths, and beliefs of Mesoamerica. The image of a Xolo dog in the center, surrounded by four quail, represents the journey to the underworld to find immortality. if something useful results from my photographs, it will be as a chronicle of my country, my times, my people, how Mexico has changed. [I captured] images that affected me deeply, like electricity, and made me press the shutter; and not only with a great artistic sense, or great beauty and light and all, but also with a sense of humor, with that sort of playfulness that is so Mexican… and then also the terrible things, those that strike you with great pain, the misery, and the suffering.”

Lola Álvarez Bravo was part of a circle of intellectuals, artists, and patrons, many of whom documented or were influenced by Kahlo and Rivera. Rivera’s modernist yet indigenous landscapes are present, along with Kahlo’s self-portraits and drawings. Frida, Diego, and Mexican Modernism presents a vision of these two larger-than-life influences and this pivotal moment in Mexico’s rich artistic history.

Héctor García, 1923-2012, Mexico City, Mexico, Frida Kahlo with Itzcuintli Dog. 1952, gelatin silver print New York, Throckmorton Fine Art

Top: Catalina Delgado-Trunk, born 1945 Mexico City, Mexico; lives Albuquerque. Xoloitzcuintli y el mito de nuestra mortalidad (Xoloitcuintli and the Myth of Mortality). 2020 papel picado (cut paper). 23 x 17 in. Promised gift of the artist in honor of Andrew Connors.