Courtesy Throckmorton Fine Art, New York
Photograph by Edward Weston
Exeter, NH (February 4, 2008)—Phillips Exeter Academy’s Lamont Art Gallery will present “Frida Kahlo: IMAGES OF AN ICON,” from Monday, February 11, to Wednesday, March 5, 2008. An opening reception for the exhibit will be held Friday, February 15, from 6:30-8 p.m. The Lamont Gallery is in the Frederick R. Mayer Art Center on Tan Lane. The exhibit is free and open to the public.
Consisting of work courtesy of Throckmorton Fine Art in New York, it is a series of photographic portraits of Frida Kahlo taken throughout her life. Photographs include works by such masters as Imogen Cunningham and Manuel Álvarez Bravo, as well as work from leading photojournalists, friends and relatives of Kahlo.
Kahlo—a Mexican painter born in 1907—achieved international notoriety for painting with vibrant, jubilant colors, influenced by indigenous cultures of Mexico and Europe, and employing such styles as Realism, Symbolism, and Surrealism. Many of her works are self-portraits that symbolically express her pain. (She endured chronic pain and numerous surgeries throughout her life due to a horrible accident.)
Kahlo was married to and influenced by internationally- renowned Mexican/Spanish muralist Diego Rivera, with whom she shared views on Communism. Although long recognized as important work, public awareness of Kahlo’s art has grown since the 1970s.
This selection of photographs traces the life and many guises of the formidable and exotic Mexican artist, who with her husband stood at the vortex of some of the most important political, social, and cultural upheavals of the 20th century, including the Mexican Revolution; the rise of international Communism; the development of Surrealism, and the Mexican muralist tradition that celebrated indigenous and folk heritage. These compelling images illustrate the extraordinary world of Kahlo as both artist and icon.
In the words of philosopher and writer Susan Sontag, “Photographs instigate, confirm, and seal legends. Seen through photographs, people become icons of themselves.”
Kahlo made the self-portrait the main theme of her painting, explaining: “I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone ... because I am the subject I know best.” She also effectively manipulated her self-image before the lens through her gaze, pose, and the carefully constructed symbolism of her clothing, jewelry, and hairstyles.
Kahlo sat for portraits by some of the most renowned photographers of the 20th century including Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, and Manual Álvarez Bravo, as well as leading photojournalists such as Gisele Freund, Bernard Silberstein, Nickolas Muray, and Fritz Henle. Her private side is also revealed in photographs taken by her friends and family.
The exhibition is centered on several themes of Kahlo: with her family, as an icon, as an artist, her playful side, and the times of her illness. Images of Kahlo with animals document the menagerie found in her household and also in her paintings. Kahlo and Rivera made a charismatic couple, and the exhibition includes a number of photographs of them together.
The exhibition’s photographs represent part of are from the collection of Spencer Throckmorton, a dealer and specialist in Latin American photography, who began assembling his collection of the vibrant artist 20 years ago. The entire collection includes more than 100 images of Kahlo, many of them rarely seen.
Gallery hours are Monday 1–5 p.m. and Tuesday–Saturday 9 a.m.–5 p.m. For more information, contact the Lamont Gallery at (603) 777-3461 or visit our Gallery webpage at www.exeter.edu/arts/8160.aspx. For directions to Phillips Exeter Academy, call (603) 777-4330. A complete list of upcoming events is available on the Phillips Exeter Academy public events line at (603) 777-4309 and on our website at http://www.exeter.edu/.
Phillips Exeter Academy is a coeducational, independent preparatory school that was founded in 1781 and originated the system of instruction known as Harkness teaching in 1931. In the spirit of its charter to foster both goodness and knowledge, a Phillips Exeter Academy education will now be free to any admitted student whose family income is $75,000 or less. Committed to educational excellence, the school meets all demonstrated financial aid needs of its admitted students, making the Academy effectively “need blind.” The diverse student body comes from a wide variety of geographic, economic, racial and religious backgrounds approximately from 45 states, the District of Columbia, the Virgin Islands and 23 foreign countries.
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