Frida Kahlo : Portraits of an Icon

This selection of portraits of Frida Kahlo brings together the work of some of the most renowned photographers of the twentieth century. The images span Frida Kahlo's life beginning with the photograph of the self-possessed chubby four-year-old with her fist full of wilting roses and ending with the image of an emaciated, wasted figure on her deathbed forty-two years later. They follow the artist's trajectory from precocious child to famous artist; bringing into focus the painter, the paintings, the patient, the wife, the daughter, the lover and the friend. They permit us to peer into her bedroom, sit at her table, visit her hospital room, wander into her garden, view her collections and play with her pets. Some of these photographs conceal as much as they reveal about the woman who described herself as 'la gran ocultadora', the great concealer. While most of the images provide us with a unique opportunity to glimpse the woman behind the facade, others perhaps not so revealing, are equally fascinating in allowing us to view one of the most intriguing of the artist's creations; the construction of a self-image as carefully crafted and conceived as any of the painter's other works of art.