Museo Casa Kahlo, a new museum dedicated to the life and work of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, will open this fall in Mexico City, the artist’s family announced this week.
The new museum will be located at Casa Roja (Red House) in the borough of Coyoacán. The property belonged to Kahlo’s parents and was later owned by the artist and her sisters. It was donated by Kahlo’s grand-niece, Mara Romeo Kahlo.
The announcement was made in New York by Kahlo’s closest living descendants and heirs — Kahlo’s grand-niece Mara Romeo Kahlo, her daughter Mara Deanda Kahlo, and Kahlo’s great-grand-niece Frida Hentschel Romeo.
“For the first time, the voice of the family will be at the heart of how Frida’s story is told,” Romeo told Vogue.
“This museum isn’t just about her work — it’s about her world. It’s about how the people closest to her shaped who she became. And it’s also about the living family — those of us who carry her legacy forward,” she said.
Designed by the Rockwell Group, the museum will exhibit personal items that have never been shown before, focusing on Kahlo’s personal life and her family, including her father Guillermo, who played a key role in her artistic development. The museum will also display dolls, jewelry, clothing and Kahlo’s very first oil painting.
Museo Casa Kahlo will also display what is believed to be the artist’s only existing mural.
The project has been promoted by the newly created Kahlo Foundation, a non-profit organization based in New York that seeks to preserve the artist’s legacy and promote Mexican and Latin American arts and cultures. The foundation also plans to establish the Kahlo Art Prize, a biennial award for innovative contemporary artists, as well as scholarship programs.
The new museum is near the Casa Azul (Blue House) museum, which was Kahlo’s childhood home, and where she later lived with her husband, Diego Rivera. It is also the place where Kahlo died.
Casa Azul will continue to be part of the museum complex, which is managed by the Fideicomiso de los Museos Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo trust and administered by the central bank of Mexico.
It hosts a collection of artworks by Kahlo, Rivera, and other artists, along with the couple’s Mexican folk art, pre-Columbian artifacts, photographs and personal items.
Museo Casa Kahlo is scheduled to open Sept. 27 under the direction of Adán García Fajardo, an academic at the Museum of Memory and Tolerance in Mexico City.
With reports from The New York Times, Arts News and Vogue
