Show explores Kahlo from new angle

In a sprawling, multi-disciplinary show, The New York Botanical Garden focuses on a long-overlooked side of artist Frida Kahlo: her deep connection to Mexico's plants and flowers, and how they inspired her art.

"Flora is a very important part of her creativity," said guest curator Ariana Zavala, a specialist in Mexican art and director of Latino Studies at Tufts University. Even those who thought they knew everything about Kahlo, Zavala said, will come away having learned something new.

The exhibit, "Frida Kahlo: Art, Garden, Life," includes 14 of Kahlo's original works; an evocation of the garden at her Mexico City home, Casa Azul (Blue House); plentiful photos from Kahlo's life; and various Mexican cultural offerings. It will be on view through Nov. 1.

A good place to begin is in the huge, glass Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, where the focus is on the gardens of Casa Azul, where Kahlo was born in 1907, lived for years with muralist Diego Rivera, and died in 1954. 

Pathways are lined with sunflowers, marigolds, fuchsia, palms, jacaranda, oleander, and numerous succulents and cacti, many of which still grow at Casa Azul, now a museum.

The lush, indigo-blue walls of Kahlo's home have been vividly rendered, as has her garden's Aztec-inspired pyramid, designed by Rivera, who painted it dazzling rose, blue and yellow. Here, it holds an array of native Mexican succulents and cacti in huge terracotta planters.

An expert in plants

In researching the show, horticulturalists at the botanical garden, working with colleagues in Mexico and a longtime volunteer gardener at Casa Azul, came to understand Kahlo as an expert in plants, with an impressive botanical library. She replanted her parents' European-style...