First Love - Frida Kahlo and Alejandro Gomez Arias

What happens to our old love affairs? Do they get filed away in our hearts? Like old, forgotten tax receipts get filed away in a drawer?

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With artists, it seems, more often than not, graphic evidence of the love that was, remains on canvas.

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Before she married Diego “The Frog Prince”, before her eternal pain conjured up all sorts of surreal imagery, Frida painted two portraits – one of herself in 1926, the other – of her first love – Alejandro Gomez Arias in 1928.

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Her beautiful self-portrait in a wine-coloured velvet dress with regal gold brocade is reminiscent of the late-Renaissance portraits, such as the one of Eleonora di Toledo (you can find my post about that majestic portrait by Bronzino in my blog). Even the elegant hand gesture is similar.

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Alejandro was charismatic, intelligent and passionately idealistic.

In one of her letters to him, Frida writes: “My Alex: since I saw you I have loved you… I would like to be… a little tiny thing that you could just carry in your pocket always always”

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In 1926, after a quarrel, she gave Alejandro her beautiful portrait as a gift, hoping for reconciliation. It worked.

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In some of the letters to Alejandro, she refers to her self-portrait as a sentient being who can feel sadness because he is not with her. She calls it “your Botticeli” [sic]. “your ‘Botticeli’ has also become very sad, but I told her that until you come back, she should be the ‘sound asleep one’, in spite of this she remembers you always.”

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She signed her letters to Alejandro “your chamaca who loves you so much”, “your Frieda”, “Friducha”, “Friduchita”

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Frida and Alejandro remained friends until Frida’s death in 1954.

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Aside from the 1928 date, there is a second inscription in the top right-hand corner of Alejandro’s portrait:

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“Alex,

I lovingly painted your portrait, a picture of one of my comrades forever.

Frieda Kahlo. 1952.

30 years later.”

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