Mexico City – Frida Kahlo’s Blue House

This is the former house of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, currently the two most famous Mexican artists. For me, this is due to the move “Frida” starring Selma Hayek which tells the explosive life story of the artist and her husband. Basically, they were both incredible artists, completely nuts and liked to sleep around. A lot. The movie is great, so is their art.

Diego Rivera is famous for his massive murals that are dotted all around Mexico City. He was a leading intellectual in the 1950s and beyond. At the time, he was universally admired, but his wife, Frida Kahlo, not so much. At the time, I get the impression that people thought she was a bit weird. In recent times, however, this status has been switched. Frida is now the more famous and popular. Her striking art is now much in demand and her husband has been relegated to a supporting role. It’s amazing what a movie can do for a dead woman’s reputation!

The “Blue House” was where the couple lived at the start of their marriage. It has been restored to look as it would when the couple lived here. At the time I visited, the curators were refurbishing a few rooms, so I didn’t get to see the whole house. They gave me a discount, so I didn’t complain too much.

Rather than being a gallery of their works, the house showed how they lived. Frida had a propensity to dress in traditional peasant dresses, so there’s a big collection of those. The two also loved their pre-Columbian artefacts, so there are lots of these strewn about the place. To be honest, you don’t get much of an insight into the artists as people. I felt a bit voyeuristic poking around Frida’s old bedroom and looking at her kitchen. This is perhaps the cult of celebrity at its worst, but it was fun.

There’s also a rather nice garden, with a film showing the history of the building and the couple. It was only in Spanish, so I didn’t bother. Oddly, there’s also a pyramid in the garden. I think that’s taking garden design a bit far, but as I said, they did love pre-Columbian!

Any Frida fan worth their salt will make the pilgrimage to this museum. It seems insanely popular for such a small museum. There were loads of tourists wandering in all the time, so I guess Frida’s status as a cultural icon of the twentieth century is pretty safe.