page_title: Frida Kahlo Museum
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Frida Kahlo Museum / History
caption_attribution_description: Picture from Frida Kahlos house - The Blue House.
context_page_description: The Frida Kahlo Museum, also known as the Blue House for the structure's cobalt-blue walls, is a historic house museum and art museum dedicated to the life and work of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. It is located in the Colonia del Carmen neighborhood of Coyoacán in Mexico City. The building was Kahlo's birthplace, the home where she grew up, lived with her husband Diego Rivera for a number of years, and where she later died in a room on the upper floor. In 1957, Diego Rivera donated the home and its contents in order to turn it into a museum in Frida's honor.
  The museum contains a collection of artwork by Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and other artists along with the couple's Mexican folk art, pre-Hispanic artifacts, photographs, memorabilia, personal items, and more. The collection is displayed in the rooms of the house which remains much as it was in the 1950s. It is the most popular museum in Coyoacán and one of the most visited in Mexico City.
context_section_description: The house was constructed in 1904 in Colonia Del Carmen in Coyoacán, which was established on lands that belonged to the former Hacienda del Carmen, a property of the Carmelites in the colonial period.  At that time and during the first half of the 20th century, Coyoacán was officially part of the Federal District of Mexico City, but was still relatively rural and separate from Mexico City's urban sprawl.  Since the late 19th century, a number of Mexico City's wealthy had built country homes in the area, often imitating the colonial designs of the past. Colonia del Carmen became popular with artists and intellectuals starting around the 1920s, due the promotion of it by Francisco Sosa and the establishment of the  Escuela de Pintura al Aire Libre (Open Air School of Painting) at the former San Pedro Martír Hacienda in 1923. Originally, the exterior  of the house was decorated in a French-inspired motif, which was popular in Mexico in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
  Frida Kahlo was born in this house in 1907, and it remained her family home throughout her life. She spent her last thirteen years of it here as well. Frida was the daughter of Wilhelm (Guillermo) Kahlo, who immigrated from Europe to Mexico and native Mexican Matilde Calderón y González. Frida spent her childhood in this house. She stated that during the Mexican Revolution, her mother would open the windows of this house in order to donate supplies to the Zapata army when it was in the area in 1913. She also spent large amount of time in the house convalescing, first in 1918 when she was struck with polio which would leave one leg shorter than the other. When she was 18, a trolley accident left her badly mangled. She spent about two years confined to her bed in casts and orthopedic devices. It was then she began to paint as a way to pass the time. One of the works from this time has Frida on what appears to be a stretcher, her body bandaged and located to the side of this house.
  Frida met Diego Rivera while he was painting murals at the Secretaria de Educacion Publica building and invited him to the Casa Azul to see her work.  Rivera soon began to be a regular visitor to the house. Other notable artists followed, making the house one of the area's meeting places. After marrying Rivera, Frida moved from her childhood home to an apartment on Paseo de la Reforma, but Rivera paid off the family's mortgage on the Casa Azul. For most of the 1930s, Frida lived in other places in Mexico City or abroad, but visited her family in the home frequently and it appears in a painting done in 1936 called Mis abuelos, mis padres y yo also called Arbol genealógico.
  Because of intervention by Kahlo and Rivera, Russian Leon Trotsky obtained asylum in Mexico. Trotsky and his wife, Natalia Sedova, were first housed in La Casa Azul starting in January 1937. The windows facing the street were closed in with adobe bricks for Trotsky's safety as he was under a death sentence from Stalin. A high wall was built between this house and the adjoining one as well. From January 1937 to April 1939, Trotsky lived and worked here, writing treatises such as Su moral y la nuestra and his regular political articles. This would often cause security problems in the area, due to the hostility of Trotsky's political enemies. During all of this time, the house continued to be a meeting place for intellectuals, especially those associated with Communism. In April 1939, Trotsky and Sedova left the Blue House after Trotsky had a falling out with Rivera over ideology and Rivera's criticism of Trotsky's writings, moving to a nearby house on Viena Street.
  Rivera and Kahlo divorced in November 1939. However, the couple did not break all contact, and they remarried in December 1940. In 1941, just before Frida's father's death, Rivera moved into the house, although he maintained another residence in San Angel. During this time, Rivera constructed the wing which faces Londres Street and encloses the courtyard completely. This section was built of local volcanic rock with ceramic vases set into it.  A terra
caption: New section or wing added on by Diego Rivera in volcanic stone and encrusted shells
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