‘Rude, heavy-drinking and a committed communist’: the Frida Kahlo you can’t buy in the gift shop

The artist’s likeness has become a symbol of resistance and heroism – but the truth is more complicated. As a major exhibition opens in London, has brand Frida obscured the real Kahlo? I spend a lot of time in museum gift shops, and no matter where I might be in the world, I will see Frida Kahlo. Her likeness appears on socks, dolls, puzzles, water bottles, cushions, jewellery, mugs, eggcups, phone cases, shopping bags, votive candles, notebooks, keychains – just about any consumer goods, in fact, that can be formed or printed. Her face has been reduced to a recognisable shorthand of monobrow,

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