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Frida Kahlo’s Final Self Portrait Will Go Up for Auction This Fall
Observer ^ | 09/23/21 | Helen Holmes

Posted on 09/27/2021 5:27:21 PM PDT by nickcarraway

The painting superimposes the visage of Diego Rivera, Kahlo's husband, over the space where her third eye would be.

Frida Kahlo’s indelible image has permeated the cultural membrane so thoroughly, it stands to reason her artworks tend to do incredibly well at auction, and an upcoming auction at Sotheby’s seems destined to continue this trend: scheduled for this November, the planned sale of Kahlo’s gorgeous Diego y yo (Diego and I) is predicted to net upwards of $30 million. The painting is reportedly the last bust portrait the artist completed before her death in 1954, and depicts how Kahlo conceived of the overlapping intellects shared between herself and her prolific husband, the monumental muralist Diego Rivera.

Towards the end of her life, Kahlo was bedridden after having her leg amputated; nevertheless, she continued to work and to pay homage to her husband, who was her constant companion. Rivera championed his wife’s work regularly. “I recommend her to you, not as a husband but as an enthusiastic admirer of her work,” Rivera once told Picasso. “Acid and tender, hard as steel and delicate and fine as a butterfly’s wing, lovable as a beautiful smile, and profound and cruel as the bitterness of life.”

Diego y yo is a profound example of their connection: Kahlo painted the visage of her husband at the center of her forehead, directly where her third eye would be in a more spiritual portrait. However, she also chose to render Rivera’s face with a third eye, creating a doubling effect that speaks to the artist’s deep wells of insight and foresight.

“A painting by Kahlo of this quality and excellence is a rarity at auction,” Julian Dawes, the Co-Head of Impressionist & Modern Art at Sotheby’s New York, said in a statement. “When I look at this painting, the phrase ‘abre los ojos,’ Spanish for ‘open your eyes,’ immediately comes to mind. In the literal sense, it refers to the penetrating stare of Kahlo as the sitter of the portrait (and the double portrait of Rivera), but I think it also symbolizes the incredible moment this painting will surely usher in for Kahlo, as the market opens its eyes to Kahlo in a new way and secures her place in the auction echelon she belongs.”


TOPICS: Arts/Photography; Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: art; fridakahlo; german; leftisttrash
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1 posted on 09/27/2021 5:27:21 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

I wonder if there is any confession in the painting that she and/or Diego murdered Leon Trotsky for the big guy?

2 posted on 09/27/2021 5:28:21 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

Say...she wasn’t a moonbat crazy Commie was she?


3 posted on 09/27/2021 5:29:33 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire. Or both.)
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To: nickcarraway

4 posted on 09/27/2021 5:32:40 PM PDT by Libloather (Why do climate change hoax deniers live in mansions on the beach?)
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To: nickcarraway

AND she had a mustache! I mean a real mustache!


5 posted on 09/27/2021 5:33:19 PM PDT by Scarlett156 (I'm putting a confusing message here to strike fear into the hearts of my enemies. Take that! Ha! )
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To: nickcarraway

6 posted on 09/27/2021 5:35:22 PM PDT by Ken H (Trump won.)
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To: Ken H

Isn’t his third eye upside down?


7 posted on 09/27/2021 5:44:09 PM PDT by nevadapatriot
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To: BenLurkin

I’m pretty sure she was. Typical German.


8 posted on 09/27/2021 5:46:33 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

I’ll never understand art.


9 posted on 09/27/2021 5:49:23 PM PDT by caver
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To: nickcarraway

Frida Kahlo is an icon among secular feminist hispanic women. She’s pretty much famous for being famous, and much like Maya Angelou among black women, is admired by those who know almost nothing about her. Kind of like the young idiots that admire Che Guevera.


10 posted on 09/27/2021 5:49:33 PM PDT by fidelis (Ecce Crucem Domini! Fugite partes adversae! Vicit Leo de tribu Juda, Radix David! Alleluia! )
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To: BenLurkin
She was a campus radical and a member of the Mexican Communist Party, which got its order directly from Stalin.

Which is why it makes no sense she would house Leon Trotsky aka Emmanuel Goldstein, the most hated man in Sovietdom.

Unless, she and Diego had orders to icepick him.

I also read Julius Rosenberg may have driven to Mexico related to that.

11 posted on 09/27/2021 5:52:02 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: Ken H
GREAT episode !

The first time really WAS a surprise.

12 posted on 09/27/2021 5:54:26 PM PDT by knarf
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To: caver

Don’t understand art? Contact Hunter! He’s a very successful artist and I’m sure he can explain all


13 posted on 09/27/2021 6:10:14 PM PDT by j.havenfarm (20 years on Free Republic, 12/10/20! More than 3700 replies and still not shutting up!)
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To: BenLurkin

As crazy as she was ugly.


14 posted on 09/27/2021 6:11:50 PM PDT by Bigg Red (Trump will be sworn in under a shower of confetti made from the tattered remains of the Rat Party.)
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To: fidelis

Yep


15 posted on 09/27/2021 6:12:42 PM PDT by Bigg Red (Trump will be sworn in under a shower of confetti made from the tattered remains of the Rat Party.)
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To: nevadapatriot

Rivera’s third eye is looking up, an obvious reference to his unconscious longing for God, reinforced by the triangular “trinity” composition of eyes above her unibrow. The portrait also refers to the Five Eyes intelligence network, which Kahlo believed had its “eyes” on them. bs/


16 posted on 09/27/2021 6:19:51 PM PDT by Chewbarkah
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To: nickcarraway

The Mexican Communist Party’s job was to keep an eye on Trotsky and his aides (I met one of his personal secretaries, George Novack, many years ago. Intellectual lightweight).

When Trotsky became a threat to Stalin, the NKVD was ordered to have Trotsky killed. Other Mexican/Soviet painter/agent, Siquieros, also once tried to kill Leon but failed.

Frieda was a hardcore communist/killer and I don’t think a great painter. Sort of a female Hunter Biden minus the talent and icepick.


17 posted on 09/27/2021 6:27:07 PM PDT by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper (Figures )
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To: MadMax, the Grinning Reaper

Trotsky was never a threat to Stalin. Certainly not after he was no longer in the Soviet Union. He was just the necessary boogie man for their two minute hate. And, let’s face it, there was more than a little anti-semitism in their demonization of Trotsky. Which they inherited straight from Karl Marx.


18 posted on 09/27/2021 6:34:09 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
The sad part, is despite being Jewish, Trotsky had no empathy for Jews.

The Chief Rabbi of Moscow went to Trotsky to plead for the plight of Russian Jews. Trotsky told him he was a communist, he didn't consider himself Jewish. The Chief Rabbi said, "The Trotskys make the revolutions, the Bronsteins pay the bills." [Bronstein was Trotsky's birth name.]

19 posted on 09/27/2021 6:38:10 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nevadapatriot

No, that’s normal for Venusians.


20 posted on 09/27/2021 6:42:59 PM PDT by Ken H (Trump won.)
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