Dallas Museum of Art Uncrated

The DMA’s current exhibition Frida: Beyond the Myth/Más allá del mito, on view through February 23, 2025, gives us an exciting opportunity to see ancient Mesoamerican objects in a new light, as a modernizing Mexico might have seen them. More than just an artist, Frida Kahlo was a political revolutionary and a passionate Mexican nationalist—she famously claimed to be born when the Revolution began in 1910, although she was actually born in 1907. She was also a collector of Mexican antiquities along with her husband, Diego Rivera, a practice that informed her own art and gave her even more tools with which to shape her image and identity as a Mexican modernist. The DMA stewards around 475 ancient objects from the cultural region called Mesoamerica, which includes most of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and parts of El Salvador and Honduras. Let’s take a closer look at three highlights from the DMA’s collection to explore Frida Kahlo’s relationship with Mexico’s ancient past. 

^{Seated Figure in Ritual Pose, 900–400 BCE. Olmec. San Martín Texmelucan, Puebla, Mexico. Serpentine and red pigment. Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Mrs. Eugene McDermott, The Roberta Coke Camp Fund, and The Art Museum League Fund, 1983.50; Frida with Idol, 1939. Nickolas Muray. Photograph. © Nickolas Muray Photo Archives.} 

The first object, an Olmec figurine carved from a jade-like stone called serpentine, was created sometime between 900 and 400 BCE and found in the state of Puebla. He sits proudly with one arm around his right knee and looks back at us with an intensity that communicates his power. His intentionally elongated skull and the downturned, jaguar-like shape of his mouth also convey his elite status. The figurine pairs with a beautiful photograph by Nickolas Muray of Frida Kahlo posing with another greenstone Olmec figurine. Dressed in a huipil (a typical Mesoamerican blouse), Mexican silver, and an iconic floral updo, she holds the green figurine with reverence. The photograph was likely taken at the Casa Azul, Kahlo and Rivera’s home in Coyoacán, where Mexican antiquities abounded and are still on display today.  

^{Seated Warrior, 300 BCE–300 CE. Jalisco. Ceramic and pigment. Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Everett Rassiga, 1958.42; Sobreviviente (Survivor), 1938. Frida Kahlo. Oil on tinplate with original tinplate frame. Colección Pérez Simón, Mexico.} 

Next is a seated warrior figure from what is now the state of Jalisco. What may look like a barrel around his torso is an ancient form of armor, possibly made out of woven reeds and cotton to soften an enemy’s blow. This ceramic figure is from West Mexico, an archaeological region that was home to a constellation of different yet related cultures that reached their peak of art production between 300 BCE and 300 CE. Sculptures like this one are found in shaft tombs, a common form of burial in ancient West Mexico that allowed mourners to bury their ancestors deep in the ground below the foundations of their homes. Kahlo and Rivera had a major influence on the collection of ancient West Mexican sculpture. It was only in the 1930s, when the couple began to collect objects like these, that they gained fame and value on the antiquities market. Another West Mexican warrior can be seen in Kahlo’s 1938 Sobreviviente (Survivor), a painting you can see in Frida Kahlo: Beyond the Myth/Más allá del mito. To Kahlo, this figure (which was probably in her and Rivera’s collection) was a survivor of both the sands of time and the violence of colonialism. Perhaps it also inspired strength within her to survive her own hardships. 

^{Wall Panel Depicting Ix K’an Bolon (“Lady-Yellow-Nine”) in Ritual Dress, about 692 CE. Maya. Pomoná, Tabasco, Mexico. Limestone, stucco, and pigment. Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, gift of Mr. and Mrs. James H. Clark, 1968.39.FA; Frida Kahlo with Cigarette and White Dress, Coyoacán, Mexico City, 1929. Guillermo Dávila. Photograph; gelatin silver print. Private collection.} 

The final ancient figure to be highlighted here is Ix K’an Bolon (“Lady-Yellow-Nine”), an ancient Maya queen who reigned alongside her husband at the site of Pomoná in what is now the state of Tabasco. On this carved monument, Ix K’an Bolon stands holding a large scepter with the head of K’awiil, a Maya god associated with lightning and divine rulership. She also wears an abundance of items made from carved jade, a stone that symbolizes not just the wealth of its owner but also the life and spirit of all things. Between her elaborate headdress, giant collar necklace, and beaded, net-like skirt, she likely wears around 25 pounds of jade. Heavy is the head that wears the crown!  

While Frida Kahlo did not interact as much with Maya culture as she did with Aztec or Zapotec traditions, she and Ix K’an Bolon share a practice of projecting strength and solidity through portraiture. Much like Kahlo’s painted self-portraits, photographs like Guillermo Dávila’s (pictured above) show us precisely the image of Kahlo that she wanted to project: a self-assured and influential woman, something divine to be reckoned with. Kahlo even wore necklaces of ancient jade beads in this photograph to tap into the same symbolic power that Ix K’an Bolon had wielded over a thousand years earlier. 

Mesoamerican peoples and the objects they created—like the DMA’s Olmec figurine, Jalisco warrior, and monument depicting Ix K’an Bolon—have constantly transformed in the last millennium. They’ve seen the rise and fall of civilizations, the Spanish invasion, and the formation of modern states. Frida Kahlo was an active participant and dissident in Mexico’s modernism, and in the process she created new chapters in the lives of antiquities like the ones she and Diego Rivera collected. Though this is just one of the many lenses through which to see Mesoamerican antiquities in the DMA’s galleries, Frida Kahlo: Beyond the Myth/Más allá del mito presents a unique opportunity to find striking connections between the ancient and the modern. 

Hayden Juroska is the 2024–2025 McDermott Intern for Indigenous American Art at the Dallas Museum of Art.