‘Rude, heavy-drinking and a committed communist’: the Frida Kahlo you can’t buy in the gift shop

The artist’s likeness has become a symbol of resistance and heroism – but the truth is more complicated. As a major exhibition opens in London, has brand Frida obscured the real Kahlo?

I spend a lot of time in museum gift shops, and no matter where I might be in the world, I will see Frida Kahlo. Her likeness appears on socks, dolls, puzzles, water bottles, cushions, jewellery, mugs, eggcups, phone cases, shopping bags, votive candles, notebooks, keychains – just about any consumer goods, in fact, that can be formed or printed.

Her face has been reduced to a recognisable shorthand of monobrow, lipstick and extravagant floral headdress (her distinctive upper lip hair seldom makes the cut). Kahlo’s life and career are likewise stripped of detail, with children’s literature and popular art books sanitising her biography, shaping it into an inspiring tale of resilience in the face of physical pain, pride in her identity and art triumphing over adversity. She has been flattened into a beautiful but tragic figure.
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