Frida found—or Frida forged?
By Jesús Ibarra
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Frida Kahlo has achieved iconic status around the world through her art and her tormented and passionate life story. Practically a symbol of Mexico, her image appears on a wide array of merchandise, and biographies of the artist abound. In 1984, her work was declared a national artistic and historical monument, and it fetches higher prices than that of any other Mexican artist to date. |
Now, 50 years after her death, Kahlo is again at the center of a controversy: the authenticity of a collection of drawings, paintings, notebooks, letters and personal items attributed to her has been called into question. The collection, most of which is currently owned by San Miguel residents Carlos Noyola and his wife, Leticia, was certified to be authentic by some of Frida’s disciples, known as the “Fridos,” but has been deemed inauthentic by some art critics and the Fideicomiso (trustee foundation) of the Diego Rivera Anahuacalli and Frida Kahlo museums in Mexico City, headed by Carlos Phillips Olmedo (the son of Dolores Olmedo, the original custodian of Rivera’s and Kahlo’s work).
A few years ago, the Noyolas sold part of their collection to the American couple Graeme and Joanne Howard, who displayed them locally in Casa Maxwell in 2007 in the exhibit “The Heart of Frida.” The collection gained widespread attention following the publication of San Miguel resident Barbara Levine’s book Finding Frida Kahlo.
| Fact or fiction? The Fridos, Arturo García Bustos, his wife Rina Lazo (she is not considered a Frido, although she was Rivera’s assistant) and Arturo Estrada Hernández, as well as Diego’s granddaughter, Ruth Alvarado Rivera, carefully reviewed the collection over the course of two years and concluded it was authentic. |
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García Bustos, recognized as one of Mexico’s greatest artists, told La Jornada in an interview on July 22, 2007, that he based his opinion on the content of the letters in the collection. “Sometimes the handwriting was scribbled since she was usually lying on her bed, or the ink was spilled, or she herself spilled it; I also recognized her temper, her ways, her thoughts…. They are authentic writings of my teacher, Frida Kahlo.” In the same interview, Rina Lazo concurred that personal information in the letters and the style of the artwork pointed to their authenticity.
Noyola also ordered a chemical analysis of the oil paintings, which was performed by Javier Vázquez Negrete, a chemical engineer in charge of the laboratory at the National School of Conservation, Restoration and Museography in Mexico City. “So far, Vázquez Negrete has analyzed 12 of the paintings and concluded all of them are authentic,” said Noyola.
Juan R. Abraham Dergal, a renowned graphologist and expert on old documents, compared the handwriting in Kahlo’s diary published in 1995 to that in a diary in the collection in San Miguel, likewise concluding that the collection is genuine.
Dubious detractors
Francisco Vidargas, a former director of Bellas Artes in San Miguel de Allende, said the Howards offered him their part of the collection for exhibition in the cultural center. He said they showed him a file containing copies of the letters, paintings and drawings in the collection, including certificates of authenticity. “When I saw the file I had doubts about the authenticity of the works, since the origin of the pieces seemed strange to me, and the works rough,” said Vidargas. “I spoke with art critic Raquel Tibol, who was close to Diego and Frida, about my suspicions and she was also surprised and thought they were fake. As a representative of an INBA [Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes] space, I could not authorize the exhibition of the pieces.” Vidargas worked from 1997 to 2001 with the Diego Rivera collection in Veracruz and published a book with Rivera’s daughter, Guadalupe Rivera Marín, about that collection.
After seeing photographs of the letters, Tibol, an art critic who lived with Kahlo during the last year of her life, told La Jornada on July 7, 2007, that the writing style was not even similar to Kahlo’s.
In an interview with Atención, Tibol said that the Noyola collection is “a sham and a crude forgery. I saw reproductions of these materials in the newspapers and I do not understand how García Bustos and Rina Lazo could have certified them. It is understandable of Ruth, Diego’s granddaughter, since she lived off of selling fakes. I have not seen the book, since I’m not interested in forgeries.” In the past, Tibol declared the painting “Retrato de Alejandro Gómez Arias” (“Portrait of Alejandro Gómez Arias”) painted by Kahlo a forgery, but later it was analyzed by Javier Vázquez Negrete (who analyzed the Noyola collection) and deemed authentic.
“Frida produces more now that she’s dead than when she was alive,” remarked Carlos Phillips Olmedo, head of the Rivera and Kahlo trust foundation, in an interview with La Jornada on July 9, 2009. “She not only produces paintings, but also letters, diaries, suitcases, and decorated books. Who defines the original work? The government? The family? The heirs can do it since they hold the copyright.”
New York art dealer Mary-Anne Martin, a specialist on Kahlo, in an interview with the Herald Scotland on September 13, 2009, said of the Noyolas’ collection that “the content is being manufactured, working backwards from known biographical details. The entry about ‘being bisexual’ is not even spelled correctly. Also in the 1940s, ‘bisexual’ meant ‘hermaphrodite.’ We don’t think the term existed when these diaries were supposedly written. They are full of funny mistakes like that… The most glaring is a self-portrait in which Kahlo holds amputated legs, which is very clearly drawn from a photograph taken 20 years before the operation.”
According to the online Art Newspaper (August 20, 2009), “other experts note that the former friends of Frida, the so-called Fridos, are artists and not scholars of her work.”
An article titled “Fighting over Frida Kahlo” by art critic Christopher Knight published on September 6, 2009, noted that “Tibol, Phillips Olmedo and Martin have never laid eyes on the material but they nonetheless insist it is a blatant forgery. They’ve not seen the little painting of a deer, nor indeed any of the archive’s 1,200 artifacts.”
A letter and a lawsuit
According to The Art Newspaper (August 20, 2009), in early August a letter was sent to the press and to Mexican cultural officials declaring that “all the documents and works in the collection are fakes.” It was signed by Salomon Grimberg, co-author of the Kahlo catalogue raisonné; Mary-Anne Martin; Sandra Waisenthal; art historian Irene Herner; Pedro Diego Alvarado Rivera, Diego’s grandson and brother of Ruth Alvarado Rivera; Teresa del Conde, an art historian and former director of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Mexico City; Alejandra Reygadas de Yturbe and Mariana Pérez Amor, owners of the Galería de Arte Mexicano; James Oles, an art curator, researcher and expert on Latin American art; and Hayden Herrera, a Kahlo biographer.
On September 22, 2009, the trusteeship of the Rivera and Kahlo museums made a legal claim “against those responsible for the probable crime of reproducing artworks and documents that might be forged.” The claim was submitted to the attorney’s general’s office (PGR) by José Luis Pérez Arredondo and Fabián Ortega, lawyers for the trusteeship.
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Noyola responds to accusations “Carlos Phillips Olmedo has headed the attacks against the book, the collection and us,” said Noyola. “The trustee foundation is not a birthright of the Olmedo family, but a legacy Diego Rivera left to Mexico. |
It does not own the copyright to Frida’s work or her personal objects. Such copyrights are owned by her surviving relatives, as Phillips Olmedo himself pointed out. It is not the trusteeship’s exclusive right to determine whether a work is authentic or not. Only the INBA can do that.”
“The arrogance and need of this mafia headed by Phillips Olmedo to control the Frida Kahlo market is incredible,” said Noyola. Their interests are not cultural or historical, only economic, and ours are the opposite. I must say that none of the people who signed the letter or who have said the collection is a fake have come to see the material.”
Regarding the declaration by Mary-Anne Martin that the word “bisexual” was not used in the 1940s, Noyola said that although it was not common it was used by a group of feminists between World Wars I and II and Kahlo considered herself bisexual, since, as she said, she ‘enjoyed sex in all its dimensions.’” About the self-portrait mentioned by Martin, Noyola said that all painters use photographs when creating self-portraits.
Noyola said that he tried to compare his material to that in the archives of the Casa Azul (the Frida Kahlo museum in Mexico City), which were opened in 2007 but later closed. “I was denied access to the archives,” he said. “However, some letters from Frida to her physician, Dr. Leo Eloesser, that were in those archives were published in the book Querido Doctorcito (Dearest Doctor), and at first sight it appears the handwriting is the same as that in the letters in our collection. Other published letters from those archives can be also compared.”
“It is not fair to use the PGR to make accusation against those responsible for … what? Publishing the story of a collection, and the research process we responsibly devoted ourselves to for four years? We have finally determined that the material has a historical value that exceeds its material value, which worries that group of commercially minded custodians.”
Noyola quoted Cassius Kuyser: “absolute certainty is a privilege of uneducated minds and of fanatics.” “We know that 100 percent authenticity could only be confirmed by Frida herself, and that is impossible, so we conclude that term ‘attributed to’ is the most appropriate. We don’t have the power that Phillips Olmedo and his group have, but we will let the facts speak for themselves, and readers can form their own opinions.”
| How the book was born In 2008, antiques collector, art curator and author Barbara Levine stopped in the Noyolas’ store and asked to see their collection. She said that when she saw it for the first time she opened one of the keepsake boxes, examined a mask, read through the pages of a diary and, while leafing through a pile of drawings, came across a Kahlo self-portrait. |
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“It dawned on me that I was not handling material left behind by an anonymous person, or a deceased family member—this was all once owned by the legendary Frida Kahlo. I am not a Kahlo scholar; I have no credentials to support any opinions I might have about the authenticity or importance of the material. In the midst of it all, however, my intuition, my instincts for collecting, and my museum experience converged, and I was drawn to the cases and their contents.”
Levine decided to write a book telling the stories of those objects. With the Noyolas’ permission, she selected 256 pieces to photograph and incorporate into Finding Frida Kahlo, which was published by Princeton Architectural Press and has been on sale in the US since August. The Noyola collection is also mentioned in another book, El laberinto de Frida (Frida’s Labyrinth), published by the Centro de Estudios de Arte Mexicano.
In the next issue of Atención: The story of how the Noyolas found Frida
Following the Frida trail
Finding Frida Kahlo by Barbara Levine, published by Princeton Architectural Press
“Reitera Tibol que la colección es apócrifa,” La Jornada, July 7, 2007
“Las cartas de ‘El Corazón de Frida’ son auténticas,” La Jornada, July 22, 2007
“Autentifica INBA obre ‘El Retrato de Alejandro Gómez Arias,’” El Financiero, December 6, 2007
“El retrato sí fue pintado por Frida Kahlo,” El Universal, December 7, 2007
“Frida produce más viva que muerta,” El Universal, July 10, 2009
“Circulará en EU un nuevo libro sobre la pintora Frida Kahlo,” La Jornada, July 12, 2009
“Forthcoming Frida Kahlo book denounced as fake,” The Art Newspaper, August 20, 2009
“Fighting over Frida Kahlo,” by Christopher Knight, Los Angeles Times, September 6, 2009
“Discovery of ‘lost’ Frida Kahlo archive causes Mexican stand-off in art world,” Herald Scotland, September 13, 2009
“Interponen denuncia ante la PGR contra presunta falsificación de obras de Kahlo,” La Jornada, September 23, 2009
“Kahlo Trove: Fact or Fakery?”, by Elisabeth Malkin, The New York Times, Sept 29
Interviews with Carlos Noyola, Francisco Vidargas and Raquel Tibol
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