Photos of Frida Kahlo’s locked-away belongings go on display in London

For 50 years, the colorful wardrobe and personal belongings of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo were hidden away in a bathroom. Her husband, muralist Diego Riviera, stored them after her death from pneumonia in 1954 at their Mexico City home, “The Blue House”, stipulating that the room stay sealed until 15 years after his death. Rivera died in 1957 but the room remained unopened until 2004 when the Frida Kahlo Museum, housed in the couple’s old home, began to catalog its contents and invited Ishiuchi Miyako to take photographs of the more than 300 items. Those photographs are now on display in an exhibition in London, showing Kahlo’s corsets, shoes, sunglasses as well as clothing she used to hide her disfigurement following polio and a devastating bus accident.

I saw the sense of sadness in her belongings, there was no one left to wear them because Frida died so long ago. It was the same sadness I saw left behind by the women who died in Hiroshima.

Japanese photographer Ishiuchi Miyako

Miyako’s photographs document the traditional dresses that Kahlo, a strong supporter of Mexico’s traditional culture, chose to hide her disfigurement as well as her prosthetic leg, adorned with Chinese embroidery and a small bell. The Japanese photographer spent three weeks taking the pictures, which have also been published in a book. Kahlo, whose life was also fraught with tumultuous affairs, including with Leon Trotsky and Josephine Baker, died at 47. The show at the Michael Hoppen gallery runs until July 12.

I didn’t know very much about Frida. Of course I’d read some books, but when I saw her belongings they were completely different from what was written about her.

Frida Kahlo

Arts Kahlo