The Exhibition To Book Now: Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up

Frida Kahlo is an icon – and we don’t say that lightly. After her death in 1954, her husband Diego Rivera locked away all her possessions in a room within their home outside Mexico City, declaring that no one could open it until after his own death. Left untouched until 2004, the collection is currently making its way to London, where it will be displayed at the V&A from 16th June - 4th November 2018.

Entitled Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up, the exhibition will showcase more than 200 of the renowned artist’s personal artefacts and clothing. Known for her bold use of colour and flower crowns, items from her wardrobe will include an intricately embroidered Guatemalan cotton coat and a satin floral skirt which still bares traces of paint. Elsewhere, visitors can view her jewellery collection and a selection of bright cosmetics, such as a Revlon lipstick (colour: Everything’s Rosy), a blusher compact and an eyebrow pencil, no doubt used to emphasize her famous monobrow.

Elsewhere an assortment of her paintings, alongside photographs of Kahlo and Rivera and their wide circle of famous friends, will be displayed. But the exhibition’s highlight? Kahlo’s brightly-decorated prosthetic leg (her leg was amputated in 1953 due to gangrene), wearing a red leather boot. Far from a morbid object, Kahlo brought joy to the limb – as she did with most things in life – by embellishing it with a bell and colourful embroidery. Bring on June.

V&A, Cromwell Road, Knightsbridge, SW7 2RL; opening 16th June 2018

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