100 Places Every Woman Should Go

A TEQUILA- SLAMMING, DIRTY JOKE-TELLING SMOKER, THIS FAMOUS artist was bisexual and beautiful. She hobbled about her bohemian barrio in lavish indigenous dress and threw dinner parties for the likes of Leon Trotsky, photographer Tina Moddotti, poet Pablo Neruda, Nelson Rockefeller, and her on-again, off-again husband, muralist Diego Rivera. Although she staunchly supported Communism, the United States posthumously honored her with being the first-ever Latina featured on its postage stamp, and her paintings still fetch more money than any other female artist’s. (Madonna is said to be an avid collector.) She is of course Frida Kahlo—cult icon extraordinaire—and a visit to her cobalt blue home in Coyoacan will be a highlight of any Mexican journey.

Much of Kahlo’s life was tragic. Born in 1907, she was soon stricken with polio that shrunk one leg, making it difficult to walk without the clunky shoes she despised. Then at age eighteen, a bus she was riding crashed into a streetcar and she flew out—to be impaled upon an iron handrail that punctured her uterus and broke her back, leg, collar bone, and pelvis. Unremitting pain kept her from bearing children, which she mourned. She endured a stormy relationship with Rivera, who, though he loved her fiercely, could not keep his hands off the ladies (including Kahlo’s sister). Kahlo retaliated with a few affairs of her own, including with Trotsky and actress Josephine Baker, but primarily assuaged her sorrows with the paintbrush. Tears run down her cheeks in many of her self-portraits.

Touring through La Casa Azul, or Blue House, is like stepping inside one of Kahlo’s fantastical paintings. The walls are awash with color and mosaics; a Day of the Dead altar yields pastries, flowers, candles, and papier mâché skeletons; the inner courtyard blooms with tropical flowers and cactus; and ceramic amphibians proliferate (in homage to Rivera, who swore he was as ugly as a frog). In the tiled kitchen, “Frida y Diego” is spelled out with tiny clay cups upon a wall. Most revealing is her four-poster sickbed, where a mirror hangs overhead (so she could better paint herself) and pictures of Lenin, Marx, and Mao are pasted at its foot. Many of Kahlo’s personal effects are displayed throughout the house, including her embroidered dresses, pre-Hispanic jewelry, corset-like body cast, sketchbook diaries, and love letters to Rivera. And then there’s her vibrant artwork, including her last completed painting (watermelons entitled Viva la Vida, or “live life”) and some works-in-progress (a portrait of Stalin). You can buy everything from Frida t-shirts to computer mousepads to coffee cups in the gift shop, and sip a café con leche in the tranquil café. La Casa Azul is located on Londres 247 and reachable by the Coyoacan Viveros Metro Station.

Once you’ve gotten your Frida fix, walk two blocks to the bunkerlike home at 410 Churubusco where Trotsky spent the last year of his life. Its barren interior is a striking contrast to that of La Casa Azul, reflecting the inherent differences between a Mexican artist and a Russian revolutionary. Trotsky fled to Mexico after butting heads with Stalin, but despite Trotsky’s home’s high walls and armed security guards, the dictator had him murdered anyway, with an icepick to the head. The house is kept as Trotsky left it, with bullet holes in the door (from the first assassination attempt) and a crumpled copy of Pravda on the desk.