Visual art
Frida Kahlo
1907–1954 · painter
Mexican painter who spent 1932–33 in Detroit with Diego Rivera and made breakthrough works there, including Henry Ford Hospital.
- Born
Coyoacán, Mexico City, Mexico- Died
Coyoacán, Mexico City, Mexico
aged 47- Birth name
- Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón
- Detroit years
- 1932–1933
- Field
- Visual art
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Kahlo came to Detroit with Rivera in April 1932 and stayed until March 1933, living in a furnished apartment in the Wardell on Kirby Street, across Woodward Avenue from the museum where he was painting. It was a hard year. She felt out of place among the Fords and Detroit society, was shaken by the hunger and homelessness of the Depression city, and was angered that some local hotels refused Jewish guests. In July 1932 she suffered a miscarriage and spent nearly two weeks at Henry Ford Hospital, which she turned into the painting Henry Ford Hospital. In Detroit she also painted My Birth and Self-Portrait on the Border Line Between Mexico and the United States, and tried lithography with Frida and the Miscarriage. A Detroit News interview of 1933 patronized her as the master's wife who dabbled in art, yet historians now see the Detroit year as the moment she found her own voice. The DIA retold the couple's Detroit story in a major 2015 exhibition.
Highlights
- Painted Henry Ford Hospital (1932) after a miscarriage at the Detroit hospital
- Also made My Birth and Self-Portrait on the Border Line… in Detroit
- Made the lithograph Frida and the Miscarriage in Detroit (1932)
- Featured in the DIA's Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit (2015)
- Her The Dream (The Bed) sold for $54.7 million, an auction record for a woman artist
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 3
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Lived here · 1932–1933
Chartreuse Kitchen & Cocktails
Kahlo and Rivera's furnished apartment across from the DIA; the building is now the Park Shelton condominiums.
Related place · 1932
Henry Ford Hospital
Where she was treated after her miscarriage in July 1932; the stay inspired her painting Henry Ford Hospital.
Related place · 1932–1933, 2015
Detroit Institute of Arts (Friday Night Live!)
The museum where Rivera painted the Detroit Industry murals while Kahlo lived nearby; it staged the 2015 exhibition on the couple's Detroit year.