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In August of 1929, after

Frida Kahlo painted the

Portrait of Miriam Penansky,

she dutifully had it photo-

graphed and, af ter inscrib-

ing on the verso the name

“Salomón Hale,” filed it inher photographic archive

(FIG. 1). Twenty-one years

later, on October 8, 1950,

Kahlo referred to the por-

trait during an interview

when she spoke of the works

she had painted shortly

after marry ing Diego Rivera

in 1929: “I began to make

paintings with backgrounds and Mexican things in

them; I painted the portraits of [Salomón] Hale’ssister [in-law], of Guadalupe Marin and the one of

TWO FRIDA KAHLO PORTRAITS: ONE FOUND, ONE CONFIRMED

SALOMON GRIMBERG, JANE C. H . JACOB, AND LAURENT SOZZANI!

!Salomon Grimberg, M.D. is a child psychiatrist in private practice inDallas, Texas. He writes on var ious aspects of the creative process andhas authored several monographs on Frida Kahlo. He is co-author ofFrida Kahlo, das Gesamtwerk (1988), the catalogue raisonné of Kahlo'scomplete works. He is currently working on the authorized catalogueraisonné of the paintings of Leonora Carrington.

!Jane C. H. Jacob, M.S. is an art historian and President of JacobFine Art, Inc. in Chicago, a consulting firm specializing in provenanceresearch and issues of attribution. She serves on the board of directorsof several organizations, including The Appraisal Foundation in

Washington. She is on the adjunct faculty of New York UniversitySCPS. Jacob Fine Art has been working with the current owners ofthe Portrait of Miriam Penansky discussed in this article to verify itsprovenance and coordinate its conservation and display.

!Laurent Sozzani, M.S., is a conservator of Old Master, modernand contemporary paintings in private practice in Amsterdam.From 1990-2012, he was a full-time paintings restorer at theRijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

The authors owe a debt of gratitude to Roberto (“Beto”) EduardoHale; Mariana Amor, Director of the Galería de Arte Mexicano; Mary-Anne Martin, Director of Mary-Anne Martin/Fine Art; and Dr. HelgaPrignitz-Poda for their invaluable help in writing this article.

Diego, which I did not finish. These three paintings;

who knows where they are?”1

The whereabouts of all three paintings remained

unknown for another sixty years, but, as will be

discussed below, we believe that one — the Por-

trait of Miriam Penansky (FIG. 2) — has now been

found, and in the process, the authenticity of

another previously disputed work, her Portrait of a

Woman in White (FIG. 3), has been confirmed.

The discovery and documentation of a lost or

previously unknown work by a major artist is an

extraordinary event; it not only expands the artist’s

oeuvre, it can provide insight into the artist’s life,

preoccupations, influences, artistic and social cir-

cles, and, of course, how she captured the zeitgeist,

or spirit of the time. Equally important, it informs

our understanding of her creative process and mayalso shed light on other works whose attribution

until then may have been considered problematic,

as in the case under discussion. Needless to say, it

can also have an effect on the artist’s market; for

documentation can make or break a sale, and the

commercial value of a well-documented work will

be increased to an astonishing degree.

In the case of Mexican art ist Frida Kahlo (1907-

1954), whose rediscovery as a painter goes back

only some thirty years to Hayden Herrera’s 1983

FIGURE 1. Photograph of thePortrait of Miriam Penansky takenby Frida Kahlo in 1929.

1 During 1949–50, psychologist Olga Campos interviewed Kahlo fora book she was preparing on the creative process, which was neverpublished. A part of the interview, first published in 2008, consisted ofKahlo telling the story of how she became a painter. This quote is fromthat interview. See Salomon Grimberg, Frida Kahlo Song of Herself (London: Merrell Publishers Limited, 2008), p. 75. The Portrait of Lupe

Marin, 1929 was always in Marin’s collection but, according to hergrandson Pedro Diego Alvarado, “She cut it up with scissors” after aquarrel with Kahlo. Personal communication with Salomon Grimberg.

This article from IFAR® Journal, Vol. 14, no. 3 is being distributed by

and cannot be posted or reprinted elsewhere without the permission of IFAR.

Salomon Grimberg, Jane C. H. Jacob, and Laurent Sozzani with the permission of the International Foundation for Art Research


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biography, this is particularly significant.2

The

uncovering of her life and art has brought with it a

hunger for her work that is difficult to explain. As

the demand to satiate this hunger increases, so does

the production of fakes — seemingly by the day.

The Frida Kahlo Museum in Baden-Baden was cre-

ated just to house a permanent collection of replicas

of her paintings, while a factory in Vietnam pro-duces an oil painting copy of any work by Kahlo for

a mere thirty dollars. As this phenomenon grows, it

has become natural for dealers in Latin American

art and auction house specialists to assume that, at

any moment, a new Frida fake wil l come through

the door, brought in by someone who unquestion-

ingly believes it to be an original. These works are

often accompanied by a “certificate of authenticity”

provided by persons and/or institutions with no

real knowledge of the artist, making things more

diff icult for the art world and scholarship. Yet,

increasingly, people are eager to trust these docu-

ments. Even educated essays on the controversial

subject, such as Jason Edward Kaufman’s “Finding

Frida Kahlo: Controversy Calls into Question the

Authenticity of the Renowned Art ist’s Work” in the

IFAR Journal, have done little to open the eyes of

those who cling to the belief that what is in front of

them is the genuine item.3

FRIDA

Kahlo’s status as a cult figure and a phenomenon

makes her among the most famous artists of the

twentieth century, and possibly the most popular.

Her operatic life: f rom her exotic looks and the

accident that nearly killed her in adolescence, to her

more than thirty surgeries, her abortions, her nar-

cissistic self-absorption, the many love affairs, and

her volatile marriage to philanderer Diego Rivera,

whom she dramatically referred to as her “secondaccident,”

4make her a magnet for the curious.

Added to these, her autobiographical art, which

FIGURE 3. !"#$% '%()*+ Woman in White, 1929. Oilon canvas, 119 x 81 cm (47 x 32 inches). Private Collection,Berlin. © 2013 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida KahloMuseums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS),New York.

2 The publication that broke ground is Hayden Herrera, Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo (New York: Harper & Row, 1983).

3 Jason Edward Kaufman, “Finding Frida Kahlo: Controversy Callsinto Question the Authenticity of the Renowned Artist’s Work,” IFAR

Journal, Vol. 11, nos. 3 & 4 (2010), pp. 18–25.

4 Kahlo to Gisèle Freund, in Gisèle Freund, “Imágen de Frida Kahlo,” Novedades (Mexico City), Supplement, “México en la cultura,” June 10,1951, p. 1.

FIGURE 2. !"#$% '%()*+ Portrait of Miriam Penansky, 1929. Oil on canvas, 60 x 47 cm (24 x 18 inches), shownafter cleaning and restoration. Private Collection.

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illustrates many of these events and consolidates

her iconic image, is mesmerizing. Both art and art-

ist have crossed over from being labeled Mexican to

Surrealist to Modernist.

Kahlo is idolized by anyone who has felt abandoned

or rejected, by those who struggle with their sense

of self, by feminists, by the handicapped, by the

neglected and the outsider. That encompasses alot of people. In Mexico, she is referred to as “the

heroine of pain.”5

People who know nothing about

art and have no interest in it know her paintings

and the details of her life. In 2012 and 2013 alone,

discounting countless commercial gallery shows

that include personal memorabilia and photo-

graphs, museum exhibitions devoted to Kahlo’s

work were organized at the High Museum of Art in

Atlanta, the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, the

Arken Museum in Copenhagen, and the Musée de

l’Orangerie in Paris. A recent Mexican exhibition,“In Praise of the Body,” in Biarritz, was advertised

throughout the city with banners sporting a Kahlo

self-portrait, while a second Kahlo self-portrait

graced the cover of the catalogue. Upcoming is a

major retrospective at the Scuderie del Quirinale in

Rome, and the Detroit Institute of Arts has plans

for a show on the year that Kahlo and Rivera spent

in that city. Anything Kahlo might have touched is

akin to a sliver from the True Cross. Mexicans refer

to this phenomenon as “Fridamania.”6

Frida Kahlo das Gesamtwerk, the catalogue raisonné

of Kahlo’s work published in 1988, documents 271

works, of which 146 are paintings. Of the nine

paintings that have surfaced since its publica-

tion, four had been documented in the publica-

tion but were recorded as lost, and five were thenunknown.

7 One of the benefits of preparing the

catalogue raisonné some thirty years after Kahlo’s

death was that many persons who had known Kah-

lo were still living and could provide valuable infor-

mation on the whereabouts of works; some owned

works, and some who had once owned works were

able to provide information that led us to the new

owners. Others knew names of collectors or ex-col-

lectors. This helped make a relatively comprehen-

sive document, even though there was no known

list by Kahlo of the works she had produced. Herpersonal archive, held at the Frida Kahlo Museum

in Mexico City, has yet to be opened to the public.

In 2008, twenty years after the publication of the

catalogue raisonné, the interview of October 1950,

mentioned above, surfaced. The closest thing

to a list by Kahlo, it provided a windfall of new

information about lost and unknown works. The

Portrait of Miriam Penansky was among the five

works that were unknown to the authors of the

catalogue raisonné (Helga Prignitz-Poda, SalomonGrimberg, Andrea Kettenmann), until July 12,

2012, when, out of the blue, a request was received

by one of the authors of the catalogue ra isonné8

to confirm its authenticity. The work had actually

surfaced briefly in 2006 when the current owners

of the Portrait had shown a photograph of the work

to a specialist whose name they could not recall,

at Sotheby’s Latin American Painting Department,

New York and were told that the work, without any

documentation to support its authenticity, was, in

5 Antonio Rodríguez, “Frida Kahlo: heroína del dolor,” Novedades (Mexico City), Supplement, “México en la cultura,” July 17, 1955,pp. 1, 4.

6 The term was coined in 1991 when the Museo Estudio Diego Riveraopened an exhibition, “Pasión por Frida,” which originally was tobe called “Fridamania,” but Mrs. Dolores Olmedo, President of theDiego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Trust, changed the name, believingit sounded disrespectful. But by then, Blanca Garduño Pulido, theMuseum Director, had already titled her text in the catalog “In Searchof Fridamania.” The word stuck and continues to be used.

7 Helga Prignitz-Poda, Salomon Grimberg, Andrea Kettenmann, FridaKahlo das Gesamtwerk (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Neue Kritik, 1988).Known and previously documented works considered lost that havesurfaced are: Portrait of a Girl with Necklace, c.1929. Cat. 15;Self-Portrait with Bonito,1941. Cat. 80; Congress of the People forPeace,1952. Cat 131; and Self-Portrait in a Sunflower, 1954 (Kahlo’slast painting) Cat. 144. The unknown paintings that have surfaced are:Still Life, 1925 (Kahlo’s first painting); Portrait of Alejandro Gómez

Arias, 1928; Portrait of Miriam Penansky, 1929; Portrait of a Womanin Polka Dotted Dress, c.1929; and Self-Portrait ( miniature), 1938; allin private collections.

“The uncovering of [Kahlo’s] life andart has brought with it a hunger

for her work that is difficult to explain.As the demand to satiate this

hunger increases, so does the productionof fakes — seemingly by the day.”


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their opinion, not genuine. The opinion was given

by telephone; no paper trail was left behind. At the

time, this information was unbeknownst to the

authors of the catalogue raisonné.

MIRIAM PENANSKY

Miriam Penansky, born November 22, 1908, in Chi-

cago, was the youngest child of Polish immigrants,

Eva Ginzburg and Charles Penansky (FIG. 4). After

her father’s death in 1920, her mother married

Morris Bromberg. Miriam, who never married,

died November 26, 1944, at age 36, from cerebral

edema, consequence of a brain tumor, in Mexico

City, where she is interred in the Jewish Cemetery.9

Her older sister, Anna (b. September 1904, Chicago,

d. c. 1979, Mexico City), married Salomón Hale

of Mexico City, and their first child, Rosalee, was

born in 1929. That year, Miriam traveled to Mexico,

staying in the Hale household.10

Eventually, she

moved there permanently and taught at Mexico’s

Music Conservatory. At the time of her death, her

portrait by Kahlo went

to her youngest maternal

aunt, Thelma Jacobson

Schwartz, who in 1989

bequeathed it to her

daughter, Marsha H.Schwartz, of Joliet, IL,

from whom the present

owners inherited it.

Salomón Hale was born

in Lipno, Poland, in 1897,

immigrated to Mexico as

a young man, and quick-

ly became an active

member and a welcome

presence in the Mexican

Jewish community.11

Within the context of this

article, he was reputedly the first foreign collector

of Modern Mexican Art. Inés Amor, Director of

the prestigious Galería de Arte Mexicano, the first

modern art gal lery in Mexico, remembered Hale in

her Memorias as an early collector with an uncanny

eye for quality:

It was surprising to me to find in thoseearly times two sympathizing voices. [Onewas] Engineer Marte R. Gómez, Minister ofAgriculture under [President] Cárdenas. …The only other man in 1935 who visited theGallery to buy was a Polish immigrant whohad been living years in Mexico, SalomónHale, leather importer, with a small office onUruguay street [who] had an extraordinaryendowment to perceive art in its best phases.… He was among the few who acquired for-eign art. He owned a magnificent cubist oilby Picasso, a painting by Miró, and graph-ics by French artists. But the strength of hiscollection was paintings by Diego, Orozco,Siqueiros, and Tamayo; he also had magnifi-cent things by Zalce, Guerrero Galván,Leopoldo Méndez and others. He came tolike Gerzso and Mérida, which shows that hewas a man well prepared to understand. …Aside from what I sold him, I knew he

“The Portrait of Miriam Penansky wasamong the five works that were unknownto the authors of the catalogue raisonné

(Helga Prignitz-Poda, Salomon Grimberg,Andrea Kettenmann), until July 12,

2012, when, out of the blue, a request wasreceived by one of the authors of thecatalogue to confirm its authenticity.”

FIGURE 4. Photographof Miriam Penansky,which helped identifythe sitter, provided byRoberto (Beto) Eduardo

Hale, her grandnephew.

8 Salomon Grimberg.

9 We are deeply indebted to Roberto Eduardo (“Beto”) Hale, amusician and composer, the sole grandchild and heir of Salomón Haleand great-nephew of Miriam Penansky, for generously opening hisfamily archives and sharing with us v ital family history, including thephotograph of his great aunt that confirms the identity of the sitter.

10 That Miriam Penansky had no intention of staying when she initiallytraveled to Mexico is suggested by the 1930 U.S. Census, which lists heras a stepdaughter and member of the household of Morris Bromberg.

11Beto Hale: “He brought all his relatives out of Europe (but one sister,whom he was unable to save, who was arrested and murdered by the

Nazis), saving them from the Holocaust, resolving their immigrationstatus and getting them established in Mexico. He also helped non-family members. Not only was he dedicated to his business, his family,and to collecting, but also regularly attended conferences that dealtwith history, medicine, and politics. He was an active member ofthe Mexican Jewish community, founder of the B’nai B’rith, México,active supporter of the foundation of the State of Israel and founderof Lion’s Club, México. He was often guest at events by PresidentsManuel Avila Camacho and Miguel Alemán Velasco. His son Eduardo[father of Roberto] was a well-known copyright lawyer. Thanks to hismembership in the Rotary Club, Mexico, of which he was President, hisson Charles was among those responsible for the eradication of polioin Mexico. His daughter Rosalee held a master’s degree in Art History. ”


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bought directly from various artists such asMaría Izquierdo, Tamayo, and others. …12

Kahlo’s own recollection of Hale was of his fine-

tuned eye when he acquired a painting she had

given to her older sister, Matilde. Kahlo recalled:

“The portrait of Rosita that Mati [Matilde] sold toan old clothes dealer, Mr. Hale found in the Lagu-

nilla flea market and

bought for 8 pesos.”13

When the work was

bought by Hale at the

flea market, it was

unsigned and undated;

the original signature

and date, 1928, had

been removed. A pho-

tograph of the signedand dated painting,

made shortly after it

was painted, is repro-

duced in Das Gesa-

mtwerk on page 90,

for comparison, next

to the portrait sans

signature and date.

In 1981, the work for

which Hale had paid

roughly 64 cents inU.S. currency, sold in

New York for $33,000

(with premium).14

STYLISTIC ANALYSIS

Hale introduced his sister-in-law, Miriam, to Frida

Kahlo within one year of Miriam’s move to Mexico.

Kahlo painted her portrait shortly thereafter. It is

worth comparing the Portrait of Miriam Penansky,

1929 (FIG.

2), with Kahlo’s Portrait of AlejandroGómez Arias, 1928

15(FIG. 5), and the Self-Portrait,

1930 (FIG. 6) — two paintings produced a year

earlier and a year later, respectively. Although her

talent was already evident, Kahlo had been paint-

ing only four years (since 1925) when she painted

the Penansky portrait, and she was still learning

her craft. It would be another three years (1932)

before she reached the characteristic freedom of

her mature work, where, in her compositions, she

surprises by introducing or juxtaposing unexpected

elements to make a statement. In the portraitspainted in 1929 and 1930, Kahlo sti ll seemed far

from achieving that freedom, although her paint-

ing is significantly better and more natural than in

the Gómez Arias portrait of 1928. In the latter, in

which her boyfriend Alejandro’s suit appears to be

made of stiff cardboard, and he, too, seems cut out

and pasted in rather than integrated into the back-

ground, Kahlo is still cautious. She is even relying

on characteristic poses Rivera had used many times

before: “I painted two or three things, which are

around the house, that to me seem very inf luenced

FIGURE 5. !"#$% '%()*+ Portraitof Alejandro Gómez Arias, 1928. Oil onpanel, 61.5 x 41 cm (24 x 16 inches).

Private Collection, Mexico. 2013 Bancode México Diego Rivera Frida KahloMuseums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / ArtistsRights Society (ARS), New York

14 Sotheby’s 19th and 20th Century Paintings - Drawings - Sculpture- Prints, New York, May 7, 1981, lot 10, listed as Seated Girl with Duck,c.1929.

15 This portrait came to light in 1990 following the death of GómezArias, through his heirs. Critic Raquel Tibol declared it an unequivocalfake but thanks to the Kahlo interview by Olga Campos, in which shedescribed the painting, its authenticity was confirmed. See Grimberg,Song of Herself, p. 73 and 81 (ill.)

12 Jorge Alberto Manrique Teresa del Conde, Una mujer en el artemexicano, Memorias de Inés Amor (México: Universidad Autonoma deMéxico, 1987), pp. 236-37 (Translation, S. Grimberg.).

13 Grimberg, Frida Kahlo Song of Herself, p. 74.

FIGURE 6. !"#$% '%()*+ Self-Portrait, 1930. Oilon canvas. 65 x 54 cm (25 ½ x 23 ¼ inches). PrivateCollection, Boston. 2013 Banco de México DiegoRivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F. /Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.


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immediate attention already speak of her rapidly

evolving style.

Although neither of the better-known portraits

was available for technical comparison with the

new-found portrait of Miriam Penansky, we did

have the unfinished Portrait of a Woman in White

available for comparative study (FIG. 3). It is dated

c.1929 because of its similarity to Kahlo’s Self-

Portrait, Time Flies of that year (FIG. 10).17When

the catalogue raisonné authors first saw it in the

1980s while preparing the catalogue, the unf inished

work belonged to Kahlo’s friend, Lola Álvarez Bravo,

Mexico’s pre-eminent woman photographer, whose

son was selling it for her. Although the painting

was essentially

unknown, it was

included in the

catalogue because

all three catalogue

raisonné authors

were certain it was

right, despite its

authenticity hav-

ing been rejected

by Raquel Tibol,

a critic who had

known Kahlo. In areview of the cata-

logue raisonné,

Tibol wrote, “In

the catalogue

of the genuine

[works], one [fake]

slipped through.

I am referring

to number 19,

Portrait of a Lady

in White …”.

18

16 Grimberg, Song of Herself, p. 74. There were more than “two orthree things,” as can be seen in the catalogue raisonné of her work.

17 The Portrait of a Woman in White’ s close resemblance incomposition, execution, and emotional content to Self-Portrait, TimeFlies suggested both paintings could have been painted during thesame period. In both portraits, the sitter is portrayed in a frontal pose,in the center of the canvas, bringing the viewer into direct and

FIGURE 7. Detail, Portrait of Alejandro Gómez Arias,1928. © 2013 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida KahloMuseums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS),New York.

FIGURE 8. Detail, Portrait of Miriam Penansky, 1929.

FIGURE 9. Detail, Self-Portrait, 1930. © 2013 Banco deMéxico Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico,

D.F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

FIGURE 10. !"#$% '%()*+ Time Flies, 1929.Oil on masonite. 77.5 x 61 cm (30 ½ x 24 inches).Anthony Bryan Collection. © 2013 Banco de MéxicoDiego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico,D.F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

by him,” she explained.16Yet, in all three portraits

(1928-30), she carries over “fingerprint” constants,

details that would likely escape a forger, such as the

careful contrasts between the dark brown pupils

and the perfectly white sclera of the eyes, with a

precise, thin white line left between the suspended

pupil and the lower lid (FIGS. 7-9). In all three

portraits, the emphatic black eyebrows she uses to

frame the eyes, and the jet-black hair that contrastswith the light skinned faces to draw the viewer’s

instant involvement. Behind each sitter, in both portraits, is a windowopen to a clear blue sky and a wrought iron balcony between twoheavy curtains tied with thick ropes. In the Self-Portrait, Kahlo has anairplane flying overhead and to her left a Solomonic column where analarm clock rests, airplane and clock creating the pun “Time Flies.” AsPortrait of a Woman in White is unfinished, it is di fficult to say howKahlo might have intended to complete the work.


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Although the catalogue raisonné authors believed

in the work, there remained the gnawing questions:

why did Lola Álvarez Bravo not exhibit it? Or did

she? At 77 years of age, she could not remember if

she had; files of her defunct gallery were lost; and

there was apparently no record of the painting everhaving existed. In the end, the authors agreed that

if she did not exhibit it, it was likely because it was

unfinished. A year after the catalogue raisonné was

published, the authors received a welcome surprise

that confirmed their belief in the Woman in White’s

authenticity and that it had, indeed, belonged to

Lola Álvarez Bravo. Mariana Amor, the new Direc-

tor of the Galería de Arte Mexicano, brought to

their attention a catalogue, obviously unknown

to them, from a collective exhibition presented at

Mexico’s Universidad Autónoma de México in 1955,the year after Kahlo’s death. The catalogue check-

list, for which Diego Rivera wrote the introduction,

read, “No. 5, Portrait, oil on canvas, Col. Lola Álva-

rez Bravo.”19

It was interesting for the purpose of this study to

compare the Woman in White with the Penansky

portrait, so that once and for all any doubt about

either work could be discarded (FIGS. 11A and B).

The comparison proved fruitful, as we were not

only able to discover technical similarities sharedby both portraits, but also similar “fingerprint”

details, which confirmed our belief in the authen-

ticity of both works.

Information gleaned from the restoration of the

two works al lowed close comparison. Woman in

White was restored

in New York in 1989

and the Penansky

portrait in 2013 in

Amsterdam. Neither

painting had ever

been varnished, and

both were cleaned to

remove only super-

ficial dirt and grime

(FIG. 12). However,

Miriam was covered

with an exceptionally

thick, dark dirt layer

indicating it had been

kept in a very pol-luted environment for

some time.

The Penansky portrait is on a cotton duck canvas

support with a Panama weave that has a double

warp and double twisted weft threads; warp count

13–14 cm, weft count 9–10. The left tacking edge of

the canvas is selvedge, stretched and tacked onto a

18 Raquel Tibol, Frida Kahlo en su luz más íntima (México, D.F.,

Lumen, 2005), pp. 252–56. The portrait first came to our attentionwhen Lola Álvarez Bravo (LAB), was attempting to sell it. Wheninterviewed by the authors of the catalogue raisonné, LABacknowledged as much. In her review, Tibol also wrote that whenshe called LAB to inquire about the Portrait, on 5 April, 1989, thephotographer replied: “I never had that painting in my house, I neverphotographed it and from the photographs I have seen, I also believeit is not [a genuine] Frida.” LAB had been close with Kahlo and Riverasince the early days of their marriage. In 1929, she began photographingKahlo’s paintings and continued to do so until 1952. When Kahlo died,Rivera called LAB to prepare Kahlo’s body and to take her official post-mortem photographic portraits, and make her ready for viewing inan open casket at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. At the time, LAB owned

FIGURE 11. A (left). Detail of Figure 3, Woman in White. 11B (right).Detail, Portrait of Miriam Penansky.

FIGURE 12. Portrait of Miriam

Penansky, shown partially cleaned aprior to restoration.

three works by Kahlo, the Portrait of a Woman in White, c. 1929; aSelf-Portrait Drawing, 1937; and a page from Kahlo’s Diary, the inkand watercolor Señor Coyote, 1953. In 1967, she lent the last two toFrida Kahlo, acompañada de siete pintoras, an exhibition in MexicoCity’s Museo de Arte Moderno. In the catalogue, the two works aredocumented as no. 2 and no. 32, respectively. In the 1930s, LAB owneda gallery where Kahlo’s paintings were for sale; Kahlo’s last exhibition,the year before her death, was held there. See in Lola Álvarez Bravoand the Photography of an Era (México: CONACULTA, 2012), p. 026,a photograph from 1937, of a collective show in the gallery where threepaintings by Kahlo hang on the left wall: My Nurse and I, 1937, MyGrandparents, My Parents and I, 1936, and Me and My Doll, 1937.

19 See: Homenaje a 5 pintores mexicanos desaparecidos, Museo de laCiudad Universitaria, Facultad Arquitectura, 1955.


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p u b l i s h e d , t h e a u t

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L o l a Á l v a r e z B r a v o . M a r i a n a A m o r , t h e n e w D i r e c -

t o r o f t h e G a l e r í a d e A r t e M e x i c a n o , b r o u g h t t o

t h e i r a t t e n t i o n a c a t a l o g u e , o b v i o u s l y u n k n o w n

t o t h e m , f r o m a c o l l e c t i v e e x h i b i t i o n p r e s e n t e d a t

M e x i c o ’ s U n i v e r s i d a d A u t ó n o m a d e M é x i c o i n 1 9 5 5 ,

t h e y e a r a f t e r K a h

l o ’ s d e a t h . T h e c a t a l o g u e c h e c k -

l i s t , f o r w h i c h D i e

g o R i v e r a w r o t e t h e i n t r o d u c t i o n ,

r e a d , “ N o . 5 , P o r t r a i t , o i l o n c a n v a s , C o l . L o l a Á l v a -

r e z B r a v o . ”

1 9

I n f o r m a t i o n g l e a n e d f r o m t h e r e s t o r a t i o n o f t h e

t w o w o r k s a l l o w e d c l o s e c o m p a r i s o n .

W o m a n i n

W h i t e w a s r e s t o r e d

i n N e w Y o r k i n 1 9 8 9

a n d t h e P e n a n s k y

p o r t r a i t i n 2 0 1 3 i n

A m s t e r d a m . N e i t h e r

p a i n t i n g h a d e v e r

b e e n v a r n i s h e d , a n d

b o t h w e r e c l e a n e d t o

r e m o v e o n l y s u p e r -

f i c i a l d i r t a n d g r i m e

( F I G .

1 2 ) . H o w e v e r ,

M i r i a m w a s c o v e r e d

w i t h a n e x c e p t i o n a l l y

t h i c k , d a r k d i r t l a y e r

i n d i c a t i n g i t h a d b e e n

k e p t i n a v e r y p o l -

l u t e d e n v i r o n m e n t f o r

s o m e t i m e .

T h e P e n a n s k y p o r t r a i t i s o n a c o t t o n d u c k c a n v a s

s u p p o r t w i t h a P a n a m a w e a v e t h a t h a s a d o u b l e

w a r p a n d d o u b l e t w i s t e d w e f t t h r e a d s ; w a r p c o u n t

1 3 – 1 4 c m , w e f t c o u n t 9 – 1 0 . T h e l e f t

t a c k i n g e d g e o f

t h e c a n v a s i s s e l v e d g e , s t r e t c h e d a n d

t a c k e d o n t o a

s k y c a n v a s . E v e n t h o u g h W o

o n a m o d e r n s t r e t c h e r , c r a c k s

t h a t i t w a s o r i g i n a l l y o n a s t r e

t o t h e P e n a n s k y p o r t r a i t .

o f g r o u n d l e f t u n p a i n t e d , w h i

n e i t h e r s i g n e d n o r d a t e d . T h e

i s s i g n e d a n d d a t e d , “ F R I D A

1 9 2 9 . ”

( F I G .

1 3 ) , a l l u p p e r c a s

K a h l o ’ s s i g n a t u r e v a r i e d o v e r

h e r g i v e n n a m e w a s s p e l l e d F r

G e r m a n , i n t o h e r y o u n g a d u l

i n t e r c h a n g e a b l y w i t h F r i d a , t

I n h e r S e l

f - P o r t r a i t , 1 9 2 6 a s w

P o r t r a i t o f R o s i t a , 1 9 2 8 , a n d t

S a l v a d o r a a n

d H e r m i n i a , 1 9 2 8

“ F R I D A K A H L O ” i n a s t y l i z e

n a t u r e ( a g a i n u p p e r c a s e ) . H o

t r a i t o f A l i c i a G a l a n t , p a i n t e d

a n d 1 9 2 8 , i s s i g n e d “ F r i d a K a

v e r s o , i n h a n d w r i t i n g . A l t h o u

F r i e d a t o s i g n h e r y o u t h f u l l e t

w r i t t e n i m m e d i a t e l y a f t e r h e r

R i v e r a , s h e d r o p p e d F r i e d a f r

i n g s b e g i n n i n g i n 1 9 3 0 . S o m e

K a h l o ” o r “ F r i d a K a h l o ” e i t h e

t e r s o r i n h a n d w r i t i n g . O n c e ,

i n 1 9 3 2 , s h e s i g n e d t h e S e l f - P o

B o r

d e r l i n e “ C A R M E N R I V E R

m i d d l e n a m e t o d i s t r a c t f r o m

a n c e s t r y , a s H i t l e r w a s c o m i n

1 8 R a q u e l T i b o l , F r i d a K

a h l o e n s u

l u z m á s í n t i m a ( M é x i c o , D . F . ,

L u m e n , 2 0 0 5 ) , p p . 2 5 2 – 5

6 . T h e p o r t r a i t fi r s t c a m e t o o u r a t t e n t i o n

w h e n L o l a Á l v a r e z B r a v o

( L A B ) , w a s a t t e m p t i n g t o s e l l i t . W h e n

i n t e r v i e w e d b y t h e a u t h o

r s o f t h e c a t a l o g u e r a i s o n n é , L A B

a c k n o w l e d g e d a s m u c h . I n h e r r e v i e w , T i b o l a l s o w r o t e t h a t w h e n

s h e c a l l e d L A B t o i n q u i r e a b o u t t h e

P o r t r a i t , o n 5 A p r i l , 1 9 8 9 , t h e

p h o t o g r a p h e r r e p l i e d : “ I

n e v e r h a d t h a t p a i n t i n g i n m y h o u s e , I n e v e r

p h o t o g r a p h e d i t a n d f r o m t h e p h o t o g r a p h s I h a v e s e e n , I a l s o b e l i e v e

i t i s n o t [ a g e n u i n e ] F r i d

a . ” L A B h a d b e e n c l o s e w i t h K a h l o a n d R i v e r a

s i n c e t h e e a r l y d a y s o f t h

e i r m a r r i a g e . I n 1 9 2 9 , s h e b e g a n p h o t o g r a p h i n g

K a h l o ’ s p a i n t i n g s a n d c o n t i n u e d t o d o s o u n t i l 1 9 5 2 . W h e n K a h l o d i e d ,

R i v e r a c a l l e d L A B t o p r e p a r e K a h l o ’ s b o d y a n d t o t a k e h e r o f fi c i a l p o s t -

m o r t e m p h o t o g r a p h i c p o r t r a i t s , a n d m a k e h e r r e a d y f o r v i e w i n g i n

a n o p e n c a s k e t a t t h e P a l a c i o d e B e l l a s A r t e s . A t t h e t i m e , L A B o w n e d

F I G U R E 1 1 .

A

( l e f t ) . D e t a i l o f F i g u r e 3 , W o m a n i n W h i t e . 1

1 B

( r i g h t ) .

D e t a i l , P o r t r a i t o f M i r i a m P e n a n s k y .

F I G U R E 1 2

. P o r t r a i t o f M i r i a m

P e n a n s k y , s h

o w n p a r t i a l l y c l e a n e d a n d

p r i o r t o r e s t o r a t i o n .

F I G U R E 1 3 . D e t a i l o f t h e s i g n a t u r e o n

u p p e r l e f t , P o r t r a i t o f M i r i a m P e n a n s k y .

t h r e e w o r k s b y K a h l o , t h e

P o r t r a i t o f a W o m a n i n

W h i t e , c . 1 9 2 9 ; a

S e l f - P o r t r a i t D r a w i n g , 1 9 3 7 ; a n d a p a g e f r o m K a h

l o ’ s D i a r y , t h e i n k

a n d w a t e r c o l o r

S e ñ o r C o y o t e , 1 9 5 3 . I n 1 9 6 7 , s h e l e n t t h e l a s t t w o t o

F r i d a K a h

l o , a c o m p a ñ a d a d e s i e t e p i n t o r a s , a n e x h i b i t i o n i n M e x i c o

C i t y ’ s M u s e o d e A r t e M o d e r n o . I n t h e c a t a l o g u e , t h e t w o w o r k s a r e

d o c u m e n t e d a s n o . 2 a n d n o . 3 2 , r e s p e c t i v e l y . I n t h e 1 9 3 0 s , L A B o w n e d

a g a l l e r y w h e r e K a h l o ’ s p a i n t i n g s w e r e f o r s a l e ; K a

h l o ’ s l a s t e x h i b i t i o n ,

t h e y e a r b e f o r e h e r d e a t h , w a s h e l d t h e r e . S e e i n L o l a

Á l v a r e z B r a v o

a n d t h e P h o t o g r a p

h y o f a n E r a ( M é x i c o : C O N A C

U L T A , 2 0 1 2 ) , p . 0 2 6 ,

a p h o t o g r a p h f r o m 1 9 3 7 , o f a c o l l e c t i v e s h o w i n t h e g a l l e r y w h e r e t h r e e

p a i n t i n g s b y K a h l o h a n g o n t h e l e f t w a l l : M y N u r s e a n

d I , 1 9 3 7 , M

y

G r a n d p a r e n t s , M y P a r e n t s a n d I , 1 9 3 6 , a n d M e a n d M y D o l

l , 1 9 3 7 .

1 9

S e e : H o m e n a j e a 5 p i n t o r e s m e x i c a n o s

d e s a p a r e c i

d o s , M u s e o d e l a

C i u d a d U n i v e r s i t a r i a , F a c u l t a d A r q u i t e c t u r a , 1 9 5

5 .


9/11


V O L . 1 4 , N O . 3 © 2 0 1 3

by radiography, infrared reflectography (IRR) and

transmitted infrared digital photography (IRD)

exposes various aspects of the underlying portrait

suggesting that the underlying portrait was also f in-

ished. As opposed to Miriam Penansky, who wears

purple and white, cross-sections of paint samplesand colors seen in open cracks and at the edges of

the canvas suggest that the f irst sitter is wearing a

predominantly

green colored

blouse with lace

trim and short

puffed sleeves.

She also wears

a necklace with

large beads or

stones. An inscrip-tion with the

dimensions of the

painting and an

indecipherable

word, upside down

on the back of the

lower rail of the

stretcher, undoubt-

edly relates to the

concealed portrait.

A second white ground, applied to cover the

underlying portrait, reduces our reading of it with

IRR, but, conversely, it helps our IRR reading by

revealing a second surprise, sketched and partially

painted motifs that may have been intended as part

of the Penansky portrait. Behind Miriam Penansky,

there was once a small shelf, and part of its hori-

zontal plank was changed into the top rail of the

yellow chair (FIG. 15). On the left side of the shelf

had stood a slender vase containing a single f lower,

and to the left and right of the portrait, partiallybehind Penansky, are shapes that may indicate

other objects also sitting on the shelf. Once seen via

IRR imaging, the impasto and color of these motifs

becomes slightly recognizable with the naked eye.

From the colors visible in paint cracks, it appears

that the vase with the f lower was actually com-

FIGURE 15. Infra-red reflectogram of the Portraitof Miriam Penansky showing a shelf and vase with aflower not visible in the original composition.

pleted. It is more difficult to say whether the shelf

and other compositional elements were fully painted

as well or only sketched. It is also difficult to know

whether the shelf and vase were originally behind

the sitter or if they belonged, with other unidentifi-

able motifs, to yet another independent composi-

tion, also abandoned in favor of the Penansky por-

trait. However, in the IRR it is clear that the chairstiles are painted directly over the shelf. There is

also brushwork and a color shift in the background

to the left and right of both stiles that indicate it

may have been a change of mind by Kahlo as she

painted Miriam Penansky, simplifying the composi-

tion by removing the shelf and vase and adding the

chair after the portrait was completed. One day, we

may discover the answers to these new questions.

Every work of art is a universe, and as with everyuniverse, it has things that are obvious, things that

are less clear, and many more that wil l remain a

mystery. In this brief essay we have pieced together

a puzzle where each component adds to our knowl-

edge about the Portrait of Miriam Penansky and

the Portrait of a Woman in White, and, ultimately,

the oeuvre of Frida Kahlo. The provenance of

each of these works and the technical and stylistic

analysis – the physical properties and materials

and the handling of line and paint – confirm their

authenticity. What we were unable to do, how-ever — something no one can do — is convey the

emotional charge that Kahlo left in each painting,

which initially drew us in the first place. This is the

essence of what is always genuine and unique, that

which cannot be forged.

. . .

“The Penansky portrait is signed andated, ‘FRiEDA KAHLO. AGOSTO 19

all upper case except for the ‘i’.Kahlo’s signature varied over the yea

Although her given name wasspelled Frieda, in the original Germa

into her young adult years, shewrote it interchangeably with Fridathe Spanish version.”


10/11


11/11

COVER: FRIDA KAHLO. Woman in White, 1929, detail. Oil on canvas, 119 x 81 cm (47 x 32 inches). Private

Collection, Berlin. © 2013 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / Artists

Rights Society (ARS), New York. See article on p. 22.

2 NE WS & UPDATE S

2 Is a Portrait Found in a Swiss Vault

a Missing Leonardo da Vinci or Another Wannabe?

6 New Sites on UNESCO’s World Heritage List

6 Syrian Red List Published

7 The Long Arms of a Textbook Case —

Kirtsaeng Book Decision Applauded by Museums

10 Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze Enters Restitution Fray Again,

as a 2009 Austrian Amendment is Put to the Test

13 U. S. Supreme Court Refuses to Review Fair Use Decision Favoring Prince

15 Fingerprint Specialist’s Defamation Suit Against The New Yorker Fails;

Appeal Expected

17 Round Two: U.S. Government v. Sotheby’s

Meanwhile U.S. MOU with Ca mbodia Renewed

2 2 T W O F R I D A K A H L O P O R T R A I T S :

O N E F O U N D , O N E C O N F I R M E D

Salomon Grimberg, Jane C. H. Jacob, and Laurent Sozzani

31 ME E T THE ART ADVISORY COUNCI L:

A C O N V E R S A T I O N W I T H E G B E R T H AV E R K A M P - B E G E M A N N

Virgilia P. Klein

3 3 T H E C A S E O F T H E “ N O T R I G H T ” B A S Q U I A T

Joseph A. Patella

39 BOOK RE V IE W

T h e E x p a n d i n g W or l d o f E a s e l P a i n t i n g C o n s e r v a t i o n —a r e v i e w o f Con servat ion of E ase l Pain t in gs

Marco Grassi

4 5 S T O L E N A R T A L E R T ®

I F AR® JOURNA L VO L 1 4 NO 3 © 2 0 1 3 1

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