When Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) died in 1954, her husband Diego Rivera asked the poet Carlos Pellicer to turn her family home, the fabled Blue House, into a museum. Pellicer selected some paintings, drawings, photographs, books and ceramics, maintaining the space just as Kahlo and Rivera had arranged it to live and work in. The rest of the objects, clothing, documents, drawings and letters, as well as over 6,000 photographs collected by Kahlo over the course of her life, were put away in bathrooms that had been converted into storerooms.

This remarkable collection remained hidden for more than half a century. A few years ago the storerooms, wardrobes, and trunks that safeguarded it were opened.

The collection of photographs is a treasure that reveals the tastes and interests of the famous couple, not only through the images themselves but also through the annotations made on them.

Frida’s collection constitutes a roll call of great photographers: Man Ray, Brassaï, Martin Munkacsi, Pierre Verger, George Hurrel, Tina Modotti, Edward Weston, Manuel and Lola Álvarez Bravo, Gisèle Freund, and many others, including Frida Kahlo herself. It is likely that many of the photographs in the collection were taken by her, though we can only be sure of the few that she decided to sign in 1929.