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The Philadelphia Museum of Art is the only East Coast venue for the first major exhibition in 15 years to be devoted to Frida Kahlo in the United States.
Examining the art of the exceptionally influential painter the exhibit (Feb. 20 through May 18, 2008) will include more than 40 works by Kahlo, among them paintings that have never been exhibited before and others that will be seen in the U.S. for the first time.
The traveling exhibition, accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, is drawn from more than 30 collections in the U.S., Mexico, France and Japan.
Kahlo (1907-1954) is one of the most respected, beloved and captivating artists of the 20th century. She was born on July 6, 1907 in Coyoacán, a southern suburb of Mexico City. She began painting in 1926 while recuperating from a near-fatal bus accident and continued to paint throughout her life.
At a time when Mexican artists Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco were internationally known for their largescale public murals, Kahlo painted small, highly detailed compositions, about 200 works altogether.
Her paintings earned the respect of Marcel Duchamp and Andre Breton, who declared her to be a self-made surrealist when he came to Mexico in 1938. Although she rejected this designation, her paintings are highly symbolic and evocative of her inner life, at once introspective and theatrical.
Kahlo's strong Mexican and Native American cultural influences combined with her difficult life experiences - contracting polio as a child,...