Juan Guzmán: Sessions with Diego and Frida

The writer Luis Cardoza y Aragón was not exaggerating when he described Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo as the hallmarks of Mexico's "spiritual landscape." The painters' lives, works, and legends generated an infinite and persistent brilliance. In their time, the couple embodied the spirit of modern Mexican art like few others. In the 50 years following the Mexican Revolution of 1910, the country had to reconcile loyalty to its traditions with its desire for modernity. The country that emerged found two of its most illustrious and significant stories in the careers of Rivera (1886–1957) and Kahlo (1907–1954).

Militants and followers of the communist ideology; active opponents of US imperialism; outspoken citizens; a couple in an atypically open and polymorphous relationship; seductive, provocative, and sarcastic—the artists were fully aware of their status as public figures.

The photographic iconography surrounding Frida and Diego therefore piques particular interest, beyond a purely biographical curiosity. As was the case for other personalities of the time, such as politicians, actors, aristocrats, and sports stars, photography was a primary means by which Diego and Frida could consolidate themselves as public figures.

The central element of Rivera's work—his murals on public buildings—was mainly shared through photographic reproductions. The detail of the muralist's pictorial epics and effigies were captured by the key photographers involved in the rise of the Mexican Renaissance: Edward Weston, Tina Modotti, and Manuel Álvarez Bravo.

With the thousands of images that make up Gutmann-Guzmán's photographic archive, Mexican photojournalism offers us a visual account of that period that helps us to understand the twists and turns of Mexican modernity. Among them are images of the legendary painters surrounded by hallmarks of their environment and the period in which they lived.

Posed and spontaneous portraits, reprographics of now iconic works, images of murals and paintings in progress, and records of press conferences and newsworthy events all come together to formulate that iconographic memory.

No other Mexican artist was as important to Guzmán as Diego Rivera. Whether in the modest role of reprographing his work and his biographical documents, or more visibly as a reporter (providing information about his works in progress, social gatherings, press conferences, and other public appearances), Guzmán was both a collaborator and an ally when it came to building the fame of the painter and muralist.

As well as pictorial arts, Rivera dominated in other fields, including verbal, scenic, fabulist, and rhetorical arts. This enabled him to entice and attract attention, sling criticism in all directions, advocate his political beliefs widely, give his compulsive lies free rein, and become a magnet for scandal. Guzmán photographed all of these art forms.

Guzmán produced an abundance of iconography featuring Rivera, which was widely reproduced but not always duly accredited. In it, the painter and muralist can be seen in the company of local celebrities (publicist Santiago Reachi; archbishop Luis María Martínez; the actress Silvia Pinal), next to illustrious visitors (Nelson Rockefeller; Orson Welles; Walt Disney), in animated conversation with choreographer Katherine Dunham and her dancers, and posing proudly with his collection of archeological pieces.

Working on several of his murals, including one that was conceived as an underwater story for the 1951 hydraulic piece Cárcamo de Dolores ("Water, Origin of Life"), and another painted for the Theater of the Insurgents (Teatro de los Insurgentes), called "History of the Theater in Mexico" (1953).

Guzmán dedicated a considerably smaller number of portraits to Frida Kahlo, Rivera's companion. He produced far more following the career of her partner, who produced "Nightmare of War, Dream of Peace" (1952). However, there is a sense of proximity and closeness in the portraits that goes beyond simply a mutually convenient working relationship between a recognized artist and a photographer, who had access to international publications.

In another series of portraits, Frida posed with her orthopedic corset exposed and decorated with the communist symbol of a sickle and hammer, and with a sugar skull on her lap bearing her name on its forehead.

These portraits with the corset and skull, which show a body constrained by immobility and yet capable of liberation through the resolve of its creative energy, evidence Guzmán's insight into Frida Kahlo's pictorial imagination and biographical journey.