During her lifetime, Frida Kahlo intended her home to be turned posthumously into a museum. The Blue House, now one of Mexico’s most beloved cultural landmarks, is the place where Kahlo was born, lived, and died. Famously painted cobalt blue inside and out, La Casa Azul was described by Kahlo as her “intimate universe”.
These pictures give us an intimate glimpse of Kahlo at her home, where she suffered miscarriages, got strapped into corsets that kept her upright after polio and a tram accident at 18 broke her spine in three places, ordered a pair of red boots decorated with bells so her prosthetic leg could match her good foot.
“She was a formidable being, but in great distress … not only because of the physical pain due to her terrible tram accident but because she was a deeply conflicted being.” wrote Rauda Jamis, the author of a biography of Kahlo. “She loved men, but did not turn away from women. She would shower you with gifts large and small, ranging from a charm, a tiny brass ex-voto, or a good luck stone to pre-Columbian pottery, as well as the heavy jewelry that she was crazy about … One day she told me: I don’t want to live a long time. I am really suffering too much.”
Take a look at Kahlo in her house through these 25 stunning pictures:
Kahlo smoking at Casa Azul, 1930.
Kahlo in Rivera Living Room with Figure of Judas, ca. 1940. (Bernard Silberstein)
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