_{Photo courtesy of the DIA}

Two black-and-white photographs owned by the DIA, one of which the museum sells as a custom print, capture the moment Kahlo, her husband, Diego Rivera, and some of Rivera’s assistants witnessed the Aug. 31, 1932, eclipse through a dark filter. The DIA also sells a print of Kahlo painting in a makeshift studio in Detroit and in her easel is the work she titled “Self-Portrait on the Borderline of United States and Mexico.”

One of Diego’s assistants, Lucienne Bloch, watched the 1932 eclipse with Kahlo and Rivera[…]Kahlo’s initial reaction to the eclipse was not kind[…]“She seemed totally disgusted with the eclipse,” Bloch wrote. “And when it was at its fullest. She said it was not beautiful at all.”

_{"Self-Portrait on the Borderline of United States and Mexico," Frieda Kahlo, 1932.}

Art historian Celia Stahr, author of “Frida in America: The Creative Awakening of a Great Artist,” said Bloch’s diary mentions Kahlo had already begun the painting before the solar eclipse. It’s possible Kahlo reacted to all the public expectation of the solar eclipse and put her own twist on it, Stahr said.

Alt link, ¡mucho gusto!, via archive.is