Kahlo’s Agony And Ecstasy

A Kahlo self-portrait, top, and the artist with her husband, Diego Rivera.

by Gabe Levenson
Travel Writer

The soaring price of gasoline notwithstanding, take the 100-mile drive from here to Philadelphia’s Museum of Art to see the major exhibit of the paintings of Frida Kahlo. Certainly less well-known in her day than her husband Diego Rivera. Kahlo ranks as one of the great artists of the 20th century. This show, called simply “Frida Kahlo,” is the first exhibit of her work in the U.S. in the last 15 years and it includes several pieces never before seen publicly, at least not in this country. The show, timed to the 100th anniversary of her birth, closes on May 18.
If Rivera himself was a painter of the world around him and of his own heritage — the various Indian civilizations of Mexico, the

tragic history of its peoples, their exploitation by the “capitalists” of the United States — Kahlo was a mistress of her own inner world; she chronicled her own constant pain and the torture that never seemed to leave her. At 18, the bus in which she was riding collided with a trolley car. She was left with a broken spinal column, many other broken bones and impalement by an iron rail that pierced her abdomen, destroying the possibility of her ever bearing children.
Many of the 40-plus paintings in the show are characterized by the stark portrayal of these physical and psychological wounds. Of her work, Kahlo herself insisted: “I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.”
As she claimed, her father, a Hungarian Jew, left Europe at the age of 19 and changed his first name from Wilhelm to its Spanish equivalent, Guillermo. He rose to prominence in the Mexican government as an official photographer of Mexico’s historic buildings, as well as of its landscapes. Kahlo’s mother, Matilde Calderon y Gonzalez, was of Spanish and Incan descent; and Kahlo’s own work, and even the clothing — really, costumes — she wore publicly, as seen in the works on display at the museum, reflect her pride in her Mexican Indian ancestry, as well as the revolutionary nationalist sympathies she shared with her husband.
During the 1930s, with the rise to power of the Nazis, Kahlo affirmed her German (and Jewish) heritage by changing her name from Frida to Frieda (an allusion to Frieden, the German word for “peace”). Indeed, perhaps as an affirmation of Jewish survival from Hitlerism, the Kahlo show is taken from the Gelman Collection, works of modern art purchased by Jacques and Natasha Gelman. Born in St. Petersburg, Jacques Gelman migrated to Mexico where he made a fortune as a film producer. Among his performers was Cantinflas, the prominent Mexican comedian.
The show includes many self-portraits, plus dozens of photographs of Kahlo — with Rivera, with Leon Trotsky (probably one of her lovers) and with the many other artists and writers who came to see her at the Rivera-Kahlo Blue House (now a small museum) in Mexico City.
The Kahlo exhibit is but one of several current or future Philadelphia shows of particular Jewish interest. The National Museum of American Jewish History (NMAJH), which will soon move out of its current location in Philadelphia’s historic Orthodox Congregation Mikve Israel, is presently showing “Shaping Space, Making Meaning.” It offers an insider’s look at the process of developing landmark exhibitions about more than 350 years of American Jewish life. A similar process will mark the opening of the 100,000-square foot, five-story building that will be the museum’s new home.
The new NMAJH building will stand directly across the Liberty Bell, two blocks south of the National Constitution Center and one block north of Independence Hall, the birthplace of American liberty. Says Gwen Goodman, NMAJH executive director: “Fundamental to the museum’s exhibitions are questions of freedom, including its blessings and costs. At its heart, this is a museum about the meaning of America itself, as seen through the eyes of one community.” She adds: “The new building will serve as a cornerstone of the modern-day American Jewish community, and a source of national pride.” Dedication of the building will take place in mid-2010.
“The NMAJH design is a composition of two interlocking volumes. Facing Independence Mall; a glass prism expresses the accessibility of the museum and the openness of America, as well as the perennial fragility of democracy,” writes James S. Polshek, head of the architectural firm of the same name and the design team responsible for the new building. “A beacon, located within the uppermost corner of the glass enclosure, evokes the torch of the Statue of Liberty, whose ‘beacon-hand glows worldwide welcome,’ as Emma Lazarus wrote,” writes Polshek.
An 85-foot-high, light-filled atrium organizes the interior space of the building, connecting the entry level to the education center and auditorium below, as well as to the exhibition floors above. Across this void are bridges linking the glazed and terra cotta areas. “Two aspects of this project account for the design challenges,” writes Polshek. “One is Museum’s incomparably important public location on Independence Mall; the other is the central theme of the Museum, that though freedom must be incontrovertible, its guarantees are fragile. We believe we have met this dual challenge by expressing both place and mission in a way that honors American Judaism and Philadelphia itself, the City of Brotherly Love.”
Accessible to both the Museum of Art and to the new NMAJH building is Rittenhouse Square, in central Philadelphia, the city’s equivalent of New York’s Washington Square. Nearby and highly recommended is the Radisson Plaza-Warwick Hotel, just around the corner from the Square itself and, in its own right, an architectural gem listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The hotel is in the heart of the Rittenhouse neighborhood, close by the tree-filled park, and surrounded by trendy shops, fine restaurants, luxury apartments. The park’s green grasses and benches are popular lunch-time destinations for workers in Center City, while the park’s lion and goat statues are the much-frequented gathering spots for small children (climbing all over the animal sculptures) and their sometimes-apprehensive parents.
For packages, which include admission to nearby museums and other places of interest, call the hotel at (215) 735-6000.
To purchase tickets for the “Frida Kahlo” show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, call (215) 235-7469. Prices up to $20. n

Westchester Jewish Conference

Westchester’s Jewish Community Relations Organization