Frida Kahlo: The Giselle Freund Photographs

In 1950, photographer Giselle Freund embarked on a two-week trip to Mexico, but she wouldn’t leave until two years later. There she met the legendary couple Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Welcomed into their home, she immersed herself in their private lives and the cultural and artistic diversity of the country, taking hundreds of photographs. These powerful photographs, among the last taken before Kahlo’s death, bear poignant witness to Frida’s beauty and talent. Showcasing more than 100 of these rare images, many of which have never been published before, the book also includes previously unpublished commentary by Giselle Freund about Frida Kahlo, texts by Kahlo’s biographer Guerard de Cortanze and art historian Lorraine Audric, as well as a link to a previously unreleased color film, shot by Freund, showing Diego Rivera at work.

Freund’s photos are a mix of staged and candid moments of the couple at work and at rest, captured mostly at their home, La Casa Azul (the Blue House), in Coyoacán, Mexico City. Kahlo can frequently be seen in her beloved garden, and Rivera, whose extreme work ethic is well known, is often pictured in his studio. Freund also took care to document the décor of the house—Kahlo’s paint box, for instance, and her figurine collection—for the clues it offered about the people who selected it