This week, Tate Modern opens the first major exhibition to explore how Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) became a global icon and a key influence on a generation of artists. Through the lens of the artists she impacted and her own extraordinary work, Frida: The Making of an Icon traces Kahlo’s extraordinary rise from a relatively unknown painter to a worldwide cultural phenomenon. Developed in collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, this landmark show examines how Kahlo’s art and life inspired generations of artists across diverse media, movements and communities around the world.
For the first time in the UK in over two decades, visitors are able to experience the full breadth of Frida Kahlo’s evolution. Rarely seen self-portraits are amongst over 30 works by Kahlo, exhibited alongside photographs and personal artefacts. Building on Tate Modern’s 2005 survey show, this exhibition goes further by demonstrating Frida’s impact on art history, presenting her work in dialogue with modern and contemporary artists from across the globe who draw influence from her aesthetic, identity and biography. Together they reveal how Kahlo’s story continues to be reimagined and reclaimed by new generations, cementing her place as one of the most influential figures in the history of art.
The exhibition opens with an exploration of how Kahlo constructs and projected her identity in her paintings and personal style. Through a rich display across multiple media, visitors discover how she visually articulates her many ‘selves,’ from the personal to the political, and the physical to the spiritual. Highlights include a selection of Kahlo’s most iconic self-portraits, including Self-Portrait (With Velvet Dress) 1926 and Self-Portrait with Loose Hair 1938, through which she embraces her Mexican heritage, queer self-image, feminist ideals and experience as a disabled woman. These are presented in dialogue with works by other artists of the ‘Mexican Renaissance’, such as Diego Rivera’s Portrait of Frida Kahlo c.1935 and María Izquierdo’s Dream and Premonition 1947, to illuminate the artistic and intellectual exchanges that shape her practice. They are joined by photographs and archival materials, including Kahlo’s tehuana dresses and treasured possessions from her personal collection.
The heart of the show focuses on the surrealist connections between Frida Kahlo and her contemporaries. While Kahlo famously rejected the label, her work reveals striking parallels with the movement, leading its founder André Breton to declare her “a self-made Surrealist.” Following her first solo show at Julien Levy Gallery in New York in 1938, Breton invited Kahlo to exhibit in Paris, where the French national collection acquired her self-portrait The Frame 1938. Tate Modern presents this work and other highlights including Diego and Frida 1929, Survivor 1938, Memory (The Heart) 1937 and Girl with a Death Mask 1938. Shown alongside paintings and photographs by Latin American artists including Kati Horna and Leonor Fini, Tate Modern examines their shared fascination with motifs informed by surrealism, including masks and skeletons, and a fixation on death and dreaming.
Although Frida Kahlo’s name first appeared in US artistic circles in the early 1930s, her work and image only gained widespread recognition decades later. During the late 1960s, the US Chicana/o movement embraces Kahlo as a powerful emblem of cultural pride and political resistance, celebrating her resilience and creativity. Born from the civil rights era of Mexican heritage, these artists aim to establish a unique identity in America. The exhibition explores how Kahlo’s works such as My Dress Hangs There 1933–8, which captures her ambivalence toward the United States, resonated deeply with Mexican migrants and Chicana/o communities, making her a lasting source of inspiration. The exhibition also foregrounds the work of a new generation of artists working in Mexico in the late 1980s and 1990s. Moved by Kahlo, artists such as Nahúm B. Zenil and Georgina Quintana repurpose quintessentially Mexican imagery and popular traditions to question nationalist ideals, patriarchal structures and gender norms.
The rise of feminism in Mexico and the US during the 1970s and 1980s also sparked renewed interest in Kahlo’s groundbreaking self-representation. Her self-portraits, featuring cropped hair, a faint moustache and masculine attire, as well as her scenes of childbirth and female sexuality, boldly challenged cultural norms. Tate Modern celebrates Kahlo’s lasting impact on women artists across Mexico, the Americas and Europe from 1970 to today. Kahlo’s work is paired with artists such as Kiki Smith, Judy Chicago and Ana Mendieta, creating powerful visual dialogues around identity, violence and the body as nature. The exhibition also highlights several contemporary artists who appropriate her iconography and embody her figure to address issues of race, gender, sexuality and disability, including Yasumasa Morimura, Martine Gutierrez and Berenice Olmedo.
The exhibition culminates by exploring Kahlo’s transformation into a global brand that extends far beyond her art, encompassing her image, style and persona. Featuring more than 200 objects generated by the mass-market production of Frida Kahlo merchandise, a room of ‘Fridamania’ looks at the rise of her commercial legacy. Through the licensing of her likeness and partnerships with major brands, Kahlo’s image was propelled into mainstream culture, appearing on everything from T-shirts and tequila bottles to Barbies and perfume. Fashion and pop culture ephemera are joined by the 1983 publication of Hayden Herrera’s biography of Kahlo, now translated into over 25 languages, which further solidifies Kahlo’s iconic status.
Get your tickets here: https://shop.tate.org.uk/ticket/date?cgid=375273
WRITTEN BY: Nura Arooj
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