The evolution of Frida Kahlo, from young girl of good bourgeois family to young spouse of Diego Rivera to becoming the most famous Mexican female artist of her times, can be followed in her art and in her attire style.

Starting on April 19th 2012 the Kunstmuseum Gehrke-Remund in Baden-Baden shows a special exhibition dedicated to Frida Kahlo dresses style starting in 1940 when she was 33 years old.
Photos of Frida Kahlo and her family, taken by her father Wilhelm Kahlo, show that Frida came from a conservative family where the girls were dressed in sailor dresses, ribbons in the hair and patent leather shoes.
As a young 18-year old woman, she wears a conservative silk dress and white socks as a painting in the Museum documents.
Meeting Diego Rivera brought a change in her style, and Frida Kahlo started to wear simple traditional Mexican dresses combined with extraordinary Maya necklaces and elaborated earrings, which Diego gave her as a present.

Over the years, Frida selected the Tehuana regional costumes of the strong women of the Tehuantepec region as her favourite attire.
Photographic documentation shows that, starting in 1940 with the second marriage to Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo wears more exclusive, extraordinary Huipils (blouses) originated in small villages in the region around Oaxaca, Guerrero and Puebla.
Already at her time, those ethnic costumes were very rare to find, being the villages far away from the main cities and transport roads. These dresses, which are now in the exhibition, are a testimony of how Frida style became richer, more colourful and decorated with lace and intricate embroideries, as with these highly embroidered dresses she would hide the increasing decay of her body.

The dresses in the exhibition, already rare to find in 1940, are the result of months long research from the Kunstmuseum Gehrke-Remund. Each exhibit is original from the village in South Mexico where it was hand-woven, hand embroidered by the ethnic women who still live in these villages.
This is the first time ever that such ethnic dresses are shown in a Museum in Europe.
This exhibition is in addition to the permanent exhibition “Frida kahlo: Viva La Vida” and will last till September 30th 2012.

The Kunstmuseum Gehrke-Remund is a privately owned monographic art museum founded in 2008. The Kunstmuseum exhibits only the works of Frida Kahlo. The objective of the Kunstmuseum Gehrke-Remund is to offer the visitors a complete view of the entire work of the Mexican artist, thus allowing to follow Kahlo’s development, to discover the different phases she goes through in her life: from the very early works to her maturity.
The Vision of the Kunstmuseum Gehrke-Remund is to offer the visitors a unique cultural experience that covers all the senses, and an environment that touches not only the eyes of the visitors, but their minds, and above all their hearts.
Every decision made in the creation of the museum was driven by two elements:
respect for the visitors and respect for the artists.

In addition to exhibit the artworks, the Kunstmuseum Gehrke-Remund shows the cultural and historical environment of Frida Kahlo’s life and times in Mexico: Tehuana Huipiles (blouses) and dresses, jewelry, pre-columbian scupltures, Mexican votive paintings and the entire context in which the artist lived and produced her work. This 360°view of Kahlo’s life and work allows the visitors to totally immerse themselves into the artworks and to better understand the artist and the Mexican history and culture.

Since January 2011 the Kunstmuseum Gehrke-Remund is member of the ICOM (International Council Of Museums), and as such is committed to the code of ethics of the international council.

The founders of the Art Museum are Hans-Jürgen Gehrke and Prof. Dr. Mariella C. Remund. Both are art patrons, collectors and passionate art historians.
They have spent over 25 years in executive positions in multinational corporations and academic organizations in Germany, Italy, France, Switzerland, USA, Spain, Mexico, South America and China.

Kunstmuseum Gehrke-Remund GmbH
Industrie Strasse 9a
76532 Baden-Baden, Germany
Tel #: +49 7221 97 11899
Press contact person: Dr. Mariella C. Remund
info@FridaKahlo.Mu
www.FridaKahlo.Mu

This release was published on openPR.