Frida+Kahlo

Frida Kahlo died on July 13, 1954 at the age of 47 and the official cause of death was given as pulmonary embolism. Althought, many suspected that she had died from an overdose that may or may not have been accidental, but an autopsy was never performed to prove this theory. During the previous years before her death she had been very ill and had her right leg amputated at the knee because of gangrene. A few days before her death she wrote in her diary: "I hope the exit is joyful - and I hopw never to return - Frida."

Frida was once asked what should be done with her body when she died, she replied: "Burn it....I don't want to be buried. I have spent too much time lying down...Just burn it!"

The day after her death, mournoers gathered at the crematorium to witness the cremation of Mexico's greatest and most shocking painter. Soon to be an international icon, Frida Kahlo knew how to give her fans one last unforgettable goodbye. As the cries of her admirers filled the room, the sudden blast of heat from the open incinerator doors caused her body to bolt upright. Her hair, now on fire, blazed around her head like a halo. Frida's lips appeared to break into a seductive grin just as the doors closed. Fridas ashes were placed in a pre-Columbian urn that is on display at the "Blue House" that she shared with Rivera. A year after her death, Rivera gae the house to the Mexican government to become a museum. Diego Rivera died in 1957. On July 12th, 1958, the "Blue House" was officially opened as the "Museo Frida Kahlo."

Frida has been described as: "...one of history's grand divas...a tequila-slamming, dirty joke-telling smoker, bi-sexual that hobbled about her bohemian barrio in lavish indigenous dress and threw festive dinner parties for the likes of Leon Trotsky, poet Pablo Neruda, Nelson Rockefeller, and her on-again, off-again husband, muralist Diego Rivera." Today, more than half a century after her death, her paintins fetch more money than any other female artist. A visit to the Museo Frida Kahlo is like taking a step back in time. All of her personal effects are displayed throughout the house and everything seems to be just as she left it.