“Fridamania” has landed in London, with an exhibition celebrating the inspirational life of Frida Kahlo.
Frida: The Making of an Icon at Tate Modern is the first major exhibition to explore how the Mexican artist (1907-54) achieved worldwide renown.
It’s also the first Frida Kahlo show in the UK since 2005, featuring more than 30 famous works that introduce her many selves – the modern artist, the political activist, the intellectual and the dedicated wife. There are also rarely seen self-portraits, photographs and personal artefacts.
According to the exhibition’s curator, Beatriz García-Velasco, the show is “the first to investigate how Frida has been transformed into one of the most influential artists of our time and a global brand – an icon – who has been venerated by many across generations”.
© Photo © Tate (Larina Fernandes)The exhibition charts the artist’s journey “from a relatively unknown local painter to the global phenomenon that we now know as ‘Fridamania'”, Beatriz adds. “It does so through a historic contextual approach to both her work and the work of others who have appropriated or drawn on her legacy.”
Frida Kahlo’s life
Considered to be one of Mexico’s greatest artists, Frida was identified as a Surrealist by the movement’s co-founder, the French artist André Breton. Indeed, Frida once said: “I never knew I was a Surrealist until André Breton came to Mexico and told me I was one.”
Her art and personal life were interwoven, and her lifelong relationship with the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera was a key influence. Their bond was turbulent, often characterised by affairs and separate homes.
© Bettmann ArchiveFrida met Diego at the age of 15 when he painted a mural at her school. They married when Frida was 22 and divorced in 1939, when she was 32, but remarried a year later.
Health problems and disabilities dominated Frida’s life, but painting was both her escape and her tonic.
© Photo © Tate (Larina Fernandes)Frida’s work gains popularity
The feminist movement of the Seventies brought a renewed interest in Frida’s work. Her fame grew following the publication in 1983 of Hayden Herrera’s Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo and the 2002 film Frida starring Salma Hayek.
Madonna is a known collector of her work and the star lent to the Tate’s 2005 Frida Kahlo retrospective.
© Madonna/ Instagram“This time, she hasn’t been able to lend to this show,” Beatriz says. “Madonna does have some very important works, including My Birth, which shows a figure in a bed giving birth to a young Frida.”
A must-see is Frida’s Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940). “It’s never been shown in the UK before,” Beatriz tells us, explaining that the butterfly brooches in the piece are, in her opinion, linked to the idea of regeneration. Frida felt entangled with nature and had a personal relationship with death.
“It was part of this vision of global interconnectedness, the body returning to nourish the earth,” the curator says.
Frida Kahlo in 2026
A century later, Frida continues to inspire today’s artists.
© JACK HALLDame Tracey Emin posed as Frida for the photographer Mary McCartney in 2000 – the photo is in the Tate exhibition. Beatriz says: “It’s a beautiful echo, because we have the Tracey exhibition [her retrospective Tracey Emin: A Second Life] across the hall.”
“She left behind an important body of work. In the future, I see different communities and audiences reimagining Frida in their own ways, for many generations to come.”
Frida: The Making of an Icon is at Tate Modern, London, until 3 January 2027
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