Frieda Kahlo in her home, La Casa Azul, Coyoacán, Mexico City, March 8

pigmentbased inkjet print

lable verso, titled and estate stamp

Many of Frida Kahlo’s bold and striking self-portraits lean toward surrealism – she appears as a wounded deer, an architectural column, or an open-chested anatomical study. Yet Kahlo rejected that label: "I don’t paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality." That reality, marked by both joy and anguish, was shaped above all by pain, from childhood polio to the devastating bus accident that left her with lifelong injuries.
The contrast between Kahlo’s painted and photographed selves is part of her enduring fascination. Her braided hair, traditional Tehuana skirts, and unmistakable unibrow have become iconic. Her paintings immerse us in her visceral experience, while photographs offer distance and a more objective view.
Among the most striking are the images Werner Bischof took of her at the Blue House in Coyoacán, just months before her death. We don’t know why he visited, but his photographs show her alone with her thoughts – smoking, painting from her wheelchair, or resting with a dog. Surrounded by her collections, she appears both beautiful and exhausted, echoing the emotional tone of her self-portraits.
Kahlo came to painting through photography, assisting her father before turning to art during her long recovery. Bischof, conversely, had hoped to become a painter before the war pushed him toward experimental photography. Their worlds overlap, and both died young: Kahlo in July 1954, Bischof in May that same year.
As a Magnum photographer, Bischof sought to capture beauty and suffering alike. In his images of Kahlo, this mission becomes intimate – a portrait of a life shaped by pain and resilience. As Kahlo famously said, "At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can." These photographs seem to prove exactly that.
(Maisie Skidmore, Magnum, 2019)¹

Note

1
Gekürzte Fassung von Maisie Skidmore, Frida Kahlo’s Final Months, Magnum Photos, https://www.magnumphotos.com/arts-culture/art/frida-kahlos-final-months/ (accessed 2.12.2025)