Stephanie G. Mathis It was not random that she chose monkeys to be her constant companions. Frida kept her monkeys in the garden at the Blue House, Coyoacan. She said that her monkeys symbolized the children she never had because of the injuries she suffered in a 1925 bus accident, which caused medical complications, an aborted child, and many miscarriages.
Frida completed this painting when she was 36 years old in 1943. She was more optimistic than in the late 1930s, when her husband Diego Rivera (a serial philanderer) and her own liaison with Soviet revolutionary Leon Trotsky led to her divorce in 1939.
Frida and an Olmec figurine. Coyoacan, 1939. Nickolas Muray Photo Archive (c) Throckmorton Fine Art, Inc.
A year later, the couple remarried. In 1943, Frida, a self-taught artist, was welcomed to the Academy where she began teaching at the School of Painting and Sculpture, Mexico City.
Her talent was recognized academically, but her health issues continued. She had to relocate her classes to Coyoacan’s Blue House. Her students dwindled down to four, who were known as “Fridos” (her loyal followers). Some critics claim that the four monkeys could represent her beloved students.
Monkeys were also of great symbolic value in pre-Columbian societies. Frida was always aware of the political and artistic aspects of the Mexican Revolution, which took place between 1910-1940, as well as the celebration of prehispanic peoples. She considered prehispanic art to be a foundational element of all Mexican art.
Frida and Diego were both obsessive artifact collectors, and the Blue House library reveals their familiarity with illustrated codices from the pre-contact era and the immediate post-conquest period that are still important sources for understanding Aztec culture.
Monkeys were a prominent part of the Aztecs world. The monkeys were considered the gods for fertility. They were known for their lasciviousness, unrestrained sexuality and cheeky nature.
Ozomatli was a special day in the Aztec calendar, which was dedicated to monkeys, and associated with the gods of song and flowers. There was no better way to represent Frida’s transgression of sexuality and her longing for fecundity (but never realized) than her carefully constructed performances and costumes.
Self-portrait, 1943. The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Mexican Art Collection (c) 2016 Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust Mexico DF
Four monkeys are depicted in the 1943 painting. Two of them embrace Frida. Two others are hidden behind her by the bird of paradise leaves, which have a bright orange and blue flower.
Two monkeys are pointing at a red-and-orange Aztec glyph or sign (or symbol) that represents earthquake or movement.
The glyph is the same as an image from the Florentine Codex, which Frida was familiar with.
Frida created many of her self-portraits on commission. Anson Conger, the first president of New York City’s Museum of Modern Art and industrialist Anson Goodyear, bought one of her earliest monkey paintings in 1938.
Goodyear was part of a group of wealthy Mexicans from business, Hollywood, and publishing circles, the private sector, and diplomatic circles. Their commissions allowed Frida, Diego, and other Communist revolutionaries to pay for Diego’s extravagant collecting and Frida’s expensive medical bills.
Jacques Gelman was one of them. A Jewish exile who fled European fascism and made a career as a film producer in Mexico, he also promoted Cantinflas early on. Gelman and his wife Natasha assembled an impressive collection of Mexican art. The Art Gallery of New South Wales is now displaying some of Gelman and Natasha’s Frida paintings.
Frida died in 1954. She had just been taken from her bed in a wheelchair to take part in a protest against the US military and political intervention in Guatemala, where the CIA helped overthrow Jacobo Arbenz’s elected government.
According to Mexican tradition, Frida’s coffin was displayed and covered in the hammer-and-sickle flag of Mexico’s Communist Party. Both Frida, and Diego, had joined the party at the beginning of the 1950s. The coffin was on display at the Palace of Fine Arts where both prominent figures from the art world as well as ordinary citizens paid their respects. This political indiscretion was a cause for dismissal of the museum director shortly after. It happened at the height of the Cold War.
Frida’s room in the Casa Azul was left exactly as it had been at the time of her death. After all, the Blue House was where she was both born and lived with Diego for most of her life.
The pilgrimage route, which brings tens and thousands of tourists to Mexico City each year, is also the most popular site for Kahlo fans. This is due to the “Fridamania”, fueled by films, fashion, and an endless supply of Kahlo-branded consumer goods.
