Totemic: Frida on the Bench (1939)
NICKOLAS MURAY PHOTO ARCHIVES
In 1938, Frida Kahlo was discovered by André Breton, proclaimed a surrealist and launched on to the international art scene. Breton had met Kahlo—then famous for being the wife of muralist Diego Rivera—in Mexico and been dazzled by the work and the woman, whom he approved of as being “endowed with all the gifts of seduction,” and “accustomed to the society of men of genius.” When Kahlo arrived in Paris, some of those lucky geniuses, including Picasso and Kandinsky, were similarly impressed by the work, or the woman, and perhaps both.
Kahlo didn’t return Breton’s compliment. She was no surrealist, she said, because her paintings depicted, not dreams, but real events in her life, including a disabling accident, troubled marriage and childlessness. Writing to a friend, Kahlo described the surrealists as self-satisfied and unhygienic, even worrying that she might have caught something nasty while staying in Breton’s flat.