Frida Kahlo
My Dress Hangs There 1933 © Banco de México and INBAL Mexico, 2005

After more than three years in America, Frida wanted desperately to return to her native Mexico. Diego, however, remained fascinated by the country and his popularity and did not want to leave. Out of the conflict came this painting. The only collage in the artist’s oeuvre, it represents an ironic portrait of American capitalism and superficiality. Filled with symbols of a modern American industrial society, it points to social decay and the destruction of fundamental human values. In this painting, Frida takes an opposite view to her husband, who was expressing his approval of industrial progress in a mural in the Rockefeller Center.

What is missing from this painting is the focal point of nearly all of Frida’s paintings…herself. Instead, Frida’s Tehuana dress hangs empty and alone amidst the chaos in the background. It may be her way of saying “I may be in America but only my dress hangs there…my life is in Mexico.”

Frida started this painting while still in New York and finished it after she and Diego returned to Mexico. She signed this painting on the back in chalk and added the inscription: “I painted this in New York when Diego was painting the mural in Rockefeller Center”.

The painting was given to Frida’s trusted medical advisor Dr. Leo Eloesser of San Francisco. When Dr. Eloesser died in 1976, he willed the painting to his long time companion Joyce Campbell. In 1993, Campbell sold the painting just before there was a boom market for Kahlo’s works.- Kettenmann: Tascen