October 20, 2012 – January 20, 2013
ART GALLERY OF ONTARIO
317 Dundas Street West
Toronto, ON M5T 1G4
T: 416.979.6648
www.ago.net
Hours: Tue & Thurs–Sun 10–5:30, Wed 10–8:30
Frida Kahlo (1907-1954). Autorretrato con monos, 1943 (Self-Portrait with Monkeys, 1943), oil on canvas, 81.5 x 63 cm. The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of Mexican Art. (C) Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museum Trust, M.D.F./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
The exhibition Frida & Diego: Passion, Politics and Painting features more than 80 paintings and works on paper by Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera and more than 60 photographs of the couple, whose shared passion for each other and Mexico’s revolutionary culture during the 1920s and 1930s have made them Mexico’s most famous artists. Assembled from three distinguished Mexican private collections on Mexican art, the Museo Dolores Olmedo, Colección Gelman, and Galería Arvil, the exhibition provides the opportunity to view almost one quarter of Kahlo’s entire body of work and a range of Rivera’s painting styles from his early cubist period and studies for his Mexican murals to his portraits and later landscapes.
Diego Rivera (1886-1957). Vendedora de alcatraces, 1943 (Calla Lily Vendor, 1943), oil on masonite, 150 x 120 cm. The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of Mexican Art. (C) Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museum Trust, M.D.F./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
During their lifetime together as a married couple, Rivera achieved international prominence as a muralist artist, while Kahlo‘s intimate paintings were embraced by the Surrealist movement and the Mexican art world but not well known in the broader context of art and modernism. Guest-curated at the AGO by Dot Tuer, Frida & Diego: Passion, Politics and Painting offers a new perspective on their artistic significance for the 21st century: one which encompasses how their paintings reflect both the dramatic story of their lives together and their artistic commitment to the transformative political and cultural values of post-revolutionary Mexico.
Featured image: Frida Kahlo (1907-1954). Autorretrato con tehmana (Diego en mi pensamiento), 1943. (Self-portrait as a Tehuana, Diego in My Thoughts), 1943, oil on masonite, 76 x 61 cm – detail. The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of Mexican Art. (C) Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museum Trust, M.D.F./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York