Going on display on Friday, May 24, 2019 at the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, “Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Mexican Modernism from the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection†is an exhibition by Frida Kahlo, her husband Diego Rivera and their contemporaries, including Manuel Ãlvarez Bravo, MarÃa Izquierdo, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros.
Husband-and-wife collectors Jacques and Natasha Gelman were glamorous and wealthy Eastern European refugees who married in Mexico in 1941, took part in Mexico City’s vibrant art scene, and acquired art mostly from their artist friends. In 1943, Jacques commissioned a full-length portrait of Natasha from Rivera, Mexico’s most celebrated painter. “The Gelmans formed close friendships with many artists in this exhibition, often acting as patrons and promoters of their careers and assembling one of the finest collections of modern Mexican art in the world along the way,†says Frist Art Museum curator Trinita Kennedy.
Among the more than 150 works on view will be seven painted self-portraits by Kahlo, Rivera’s “Calla Lily Vendor†and numerous portraits of the Gelmans, plus more than fifty photographs that provide insight into Kahlo and Rivera’s passionate love affair and how the couple lived, worked and dressed.
Rivera’s artistic works, as well as his vocal opinions on the role of art, would shape the development of Mexican culture throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Rivera also created easel paintings representing poignant scenes of everyday life and labor in Mexico.
   “His depictions of Mexican traditions and everyday life soon came to epitomize Mexican culture at home and abroad, including the United States where he created murals in San Francisco, Detroit, and New York,†says Kennedy.
Kahlo infused her work with mexicanidad, an identification with Mexico’s distinct national history, traditions, culture and natural environment, but in a much more personal way. About a third of her paintings are self-portraits, the works for which she is now most celebrated. They accentuate her distinctive appearance, characterized by a v-shaped unibrow, deep brown eyes, mustache, carefully coiffed hair with braids and indigenous Mexican clothing. In “Diego on My Mind†(Self-Portrait as Tehuana), for example, she crowns herself with a festive indigenous Mexican headdress known as a resplandor.
The works collected by the Gelmans offer an unrivaled opportunity to encounter the chaotic and creative Mexican art world of the first half of the twentieth century in all its complexity. Modern Mexican art exerted a key influence on modern art in the United States, and its impact continues to be felt throughout the world today.
For this exhibition, including others on view, see www.FristArtMuseum.org.