Tribute to colourful painter’s love of gardening
Frida Kahlo. Painter. Feminist icon. Famous for her tortured self-portraits and her equally tortured marriage to the philandering Diego Rivera.
And now she’s getting another dollop of fame as a passionate gardener. A new blockbuster exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden celebrates the Mexican superstar’s love of nature and plants — and it’s so entertaining, people who don’t normally go to such events are flocking to see it.
“We have long lineups on weekends,” reports a pleased Gayle Snible, director of PR. “Hispanics particularly love this show, because it’s about a famous person from their culture and everything is presented in both Spanish and English. So they’re bringing the whole family along.”
Even if you can’t speak a word of Spanish and aren’t fond of Kahlo’s narcissistic art (I happen to think her husband was a far better painter), there’s lots to like about this show. For me, it was illuminating to discover that Kahlo was an advocate of native plants long before it became fashionable, because she loved what grew at home, not imports from Europe.
After inheriting the Casa Azul in Coyoacan, outside Mexico City, from her German father, she removed the plants he favoured, such as roses and ivy. Local species replaced them. Spiky agaves, organ pipe cactuses, clay urns of fiery zinnias and marigolds. She loved such exotica, set against dazzling backdrops of
How savvy this ardent nationalist was, because colour — vivid, knock-yoursocks-off colour — is surely what defines Mexico as a nation
electric blue, orange and yellow.
And how savvy this ardent nationalist was, because colour — vivid, knock-yoursocks-off colour — is surely what defines Mexico as a nation.
Kahlo, who died in l954, also anticipated the environmental movement. She believed that humans and nature were intimately linked and we should embrace the Earth, not exploit it. In one painting in the show — of Luther Burbank, the American horticulturist who developed the spuds still used to make McDonalds’ french fries — she depicts him with roots for legs, descending into the ground.
The Kahlo exhibition is spread over two wide-apart buildings in the huge, 100-hectare garden, but a convenient tram gets you to both. In the library building, there’s a sparse, rather dull exhibit of Kahlo’s work. A Mexican artist’s recreation of the two dresses she wore in her celebrated self-portrait, The Two Fridas, is more fun. So are big placards and photos about her life with Rivera.
However, the best stuff lies in the Enid Haupt Conservatory. The curators have cleverly organized a walk through these tropical greenhouses to show off the type of plants Kahlo grew.
Then you get to the end and encounter her little painting desk, plus a reconstruction of the big, colourful Nahuatl pyramid, decked out with tropical plants, that Rivera built in their garden at Coyoacan.
“I love Frida Kahlo,” Sara Elise, a pretty girl from Brooklyn, told me gravely as she posed by the pyramid, getting admiring glances for her Frida-lookalike outfit. “She is my inspiration.”
Whether you agree or not, this exhibition is an inspiring new look at Mexico’s most famous female. If you go: The New York Botanical Garden is in the Bronx. Take a Metro North train from Manhattan, not the subway, because it’s much faster. The show runs until Nov. 1. Information about opening hours and prices can be found at nybg.org. Sonia Day was in New York City to pick up a Silver Medal for her first novel, Deer Eyes, at the Independent Publisher Book Awards. More at: soniaday.com