About Your Trip
Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera are recognized as some of the most notable artistic figures of the early 1900s, and even after each of them passed away in the 1950s, their reputations live on through their inspiring artwork that captures raw emotions related to gender, politics, personal struggles and more. On this DreamTrip, you’ll visit 4 museums featuring both Kahlo and her longtime companion Rivera to get a real sense of their enduring legacy.
Start at Coyoacan on the outskirts of the city. This bohemian-like neighborhood is home to museums, colonial-era houses, cantinas, cobblestoned main plaza and souvenir markets. After some free time looking around, head to Frida Kahlo Museum, a blue-colored house where she was born in 1907 and died in 1954. Kahlo’s life and times are displayed with paintings such as Portrait of My Father, original furniture, artifacts and artwork by Rivera. Continue to Museo Diego Rivera Anahuacalli, an imposing pyramid-style building of volcanic stone designed by Rivera. Here, marvel at thousands of pre-Hispanic relics as well as some sketches of his murals.
At Museo Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo, you’ll get a glimpse into the home of this couple. They had their own living quarters separated by a bridge, and you’ll see Rivera’s studio and Kahlo’s bathroom containing the bathtub that appears in her famous painting What the Water Gave Me. End the day at Museo Dolores Olmedo. This building dating to the 1500s comprises gardens, courtyards and rooms containing the world’s largest private collection of works by Rivera. Exhibited are his painting Self-portrait with Broad-Brimmed Hat and Kahlo’s Self-Portrait with Small Monkey.
What we love:
• Kahlo and Rivera were married in 1929, divorced in 1939 and remarried in 1940, and many of their works give insight into this complicated relationship.
• Throughout her life, Kahlo experienced health issues, from polio in childhood to injuries from bus accident as a teenager, and her tragedies are frequently expressed through her art, especially in the painting The Broken Column displayed at Museo Dolores Olmedo.
• Part of the Mexican Mural Movement of the 1920s, Rivera is known for politically themed frescos such as Man, Controller of the Universe painted on a wall at Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City.