Kahlo with Diego Rivera.Credit: Getty Images
Julie Miller traces the story of a nation's most famous lovers through their family homes and revered artworks.
ENGLAND has William and Kate, Hollywood Brad and Angelina (for now) and Italy still capitalises on the original romantic tragics, Romeo and Juliet. But in terms of tourist dollars, marketing and visibility, arguably no couple in history is more celebrated than Mexico's uber-lovers, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.
From museums to public spaces, from handbags to coffee mugs, posters to motion pictures, their artworks form an integral part of the very fabric of Mexico City, their influence on the city's historical, political and cultural canvas impossible to avoid.
Immortalised in the 2002 Hollywood movie starring Salma Hayek, it is Kahlo's stylised, brightly coloured image that is most recognisable to visitors to Mexico City, her deprecating self-portraits reproduced on T-shirts, beach towels, postcards and souvenirs.
When they first met in 1928, however, it was Diego Rivera who was the man of the moment. Through his epic, detailed murals depicting historic events and social commentary, Rivera had become the voice of the Mexican people, leaving an indelible stamp on the way they viewed their heritage and independence. From the massive murals in the porticos and stairwell of the Palacio Nacional overlooking the Zocalo, to fantastical underwater mosaics at the waterworks in Chapultepec Park, Rivera is credited with reintroducing the concept of architectural frescoes into the modern art scene, a latter-day Michelangelo reinventing high art as popular culture.
They were an unlikely celebrity couple – he middle-aged and rotund, she crippled by polio and bearing the world's most famous monobrow – yet their love story was as passionate, scandalous, volatile and disastrous as any played out in the pages of a celebrity magazine.
Although marrying in 1929, the union between the couple – described as “an elephant and a dove” – was anything but conventional. He was an unashamed philanderer – at one point he had an affair with Kahlo's sister, Cristina – and she was openly bisexual, taunting her on-off-on again husband through affairs with international artists, movie stars and politicians, including Leon Trotsky. In true Taylor-Burtonesque style, the couple divorced, remarried, separated again, reconciled – all the while enthralling Mexico with their shocking behaviour.
Throughout it all, however, their individual artistic talents reigned supreme. Rivera was acclaimed internationally, feted in exhibitions in New York, Paris and San Francisco, while Kahlo went from being the “shy Mexican girl on the arm of Diego Rivera” to a superstar in her own right, a creative whirlwind who is now recognised as one of the world's greatest self-portraitists.
Much of their soap opera was conducted within the walls of Kahlo's childhood home, a charming blue hacienda in Mexico City's historical quarter of Coyoacan. Now known as Casa Azul, the house where Kahlo was born and died was established as a museum four years after her death in 1954 and is one of Mexico City's most visited attractions.
The two-winged home, built around a shady courtyard, is more time capsule than art museum, filled with everyday objects from the couple's life – books, pottery, kitchen utensils illustrating their love of entertaining, and clothing and jewellery revealing Kahlo's distinctive style. Her studio, complete with easel, brushes and palette, is exactly how she left it, while throughout the house are collections of Mexican folk art, pre-Hispanic artefacts and ex-voto paintings that inspired the couple's artistic endeavours.
An entry ticket to Casa Azul also buys entrance into another fascinating museum, Anahuacalli, a dark, pyramid-like structure built by Rivera to house his extensive collection of pre-Hispanic art. The museum also features some of his work, including studies for Man at the Crossroads, his mural commissioned by the Rockefeller Centre in New York.
In the neighbouring suburb of San Angel, via a park featuring a gorgeous bronze statue of the couple, is the home where they lived between 1934 and 1940. Designed by Mexican architect Juan O'Gorman in 1931, this avant-garde house is actually two separate houses joined by a walkway, testament to the couple's desire for independence even at their happiest. Today, Rivera's house is a homage to the artist at work, his studio preserved as he left it, while Kahlo's house (also blue) has changing exhibits from both artists' archives.
One of the most important collections of both Kahlo and Rivera's work is found south of the city, near the charming canal destination of Xochimilco.
The Museo Dolores Olmedo is named for the former owner of the gorgeous, rambling hacienda, one of Rivera's mistresses and an important patron of the arts.
In this casual setting, it is clear both artists painted for themselves and their friends; one of the first Rivera lithographs acquired by Dolores Olmedo was a nude study he'd made of her soon after they met in 1928.
In fact, Rivera loved to paint his friends, enemies and political cohorts, often in absurd or incongruous situations and always with a sense of humour. In his massive mural The Dream of Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park, which occupies its own museum in that very park, we see Rivera's obsession with Mexican history, tempered with a touch of whimsy.
Front and centre of the 15-metre fresco is Rivera himself, portrayed as a fat little boy holding the hand of La Calavera Catrina, a skeletal figure created by the popular Mexican engraver Jose Guadalupe Posada.
Posada, too, is depicted holding Death's other arm, while behind the skeleton is Kahlo wearing traditional Mexican dress, her arm around the shoulders of young Rivera like a protective mother figure.
There are more than a hundred historical characters in the painting, including conqueror Hernando Cortes, 19th-century reformer Benito Juarez, Cuban revolutionary Jose Marti and dictator Porfirio Diaz. The painting occupies a complete wall of the museum and it's easy to while away at least half an hour staring at the painting from comfy leather lounges, examining its intricacies and discovering who's who in handy English-language explanations.
More than just a painting, this masterpiece is an expression of love not just for the woman who presided over his life and career but also for the city where he lived, a magnificent telling of Mexico City's explosive history and politics.
Trip notes
Getting there
Several airlines including V Australia and United Airlines fly from Sydney to Los Angeles, with connections to Mexico City.
Staying there
Friendly, comfortable and in the cool suburb of Condesa, the Red Tree House is a great choice for bargain hunters. Singles from $US79 ($75) a night, including
breakfast and a welcome glass of wine. theredtreehouse.com.
More information
Entrance to Casa Azul (museofridakahlo.org.mx) and Anahuacalli (museoanahuacalli.org.mx) costs 55 pesos ($4.30). Museo Estudio Diego Rivera, www.estudiodiegorivera.bellasartes.gob.mx. Museo Dolores Olmedo, museodoloresolmedo.org.mx.
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