Frida Kahlo’s house is the brightest medium blue and maroon colors. It is immediately recognizable if you’ve ever read or watched anything about Frida. She was born, lived most of her life, and died in this house. Much of her work was created here, so of course, it’s a mecca for lovers of the artist.
People often ask me how I decide where to travel; this is a good example. I knew one thing about Mexico City before I decided to go there: Frida Kahlo had lived there, and now her house was a museum. This idea sat in my brain for several years before the stars aligned, and I finally found myself standing outside staring up at the famous “Casa Azul.”
Tickets to Casa Azul
After the Anthropology Museum, Frida’s house/museum is the second most popular in Mexico. That’s pretty amazing since Mexico has hundreds of museums.
Getting tickets to the museum can be tricky and requires pre-planning or a connection. I visited twice and both times I paid a guide to obtain the tickets. There is no line for tickets because all entries are timed, and tickets must be purchased online in advance. Still, crowds mill about outside, and the streets are filled with vendors selling everything you can imagine with Frida’s face on it.
Entering the Courtyard with the Famous Pyramid
When you enter the courtyard, it is through double wood doors big enough for a car. The spectacular courtyard is about the size of half a football field. By middle-class American standards, it’s a large yard, but not massive.
Because they have mild weather all year, the house’s courtyard was as much a “room” as any with a ceiling inside. The famous blue and maroon “pyramid” her husband, famed muralist Diego Rivera, had made to hold her Aztec statues sit in one corner. Before regulation, the couple traveled to ancient sites and excavated the ruins themselves!
Fun fact: You can find a replica of this pyramid in the Vallarta Botanical Garden in Puerto Vallarta. You can also buy a miniature to take home.
Pre-Columbian sculptures line the courtyard and can be spotted between various gardens and ponds. It’s easy to see that the “outside” was just another room.
Inside the Blue House
Inside, one room leads to the next, with various doors leading to the courtyard. The house is just as she and Diego left it when she died in 1954. Some of her most famous paintings are on display, including the last one she ever painted a week before her death titled, “Viva la Vida, Watermelons.”
Her belongings are displayed throughout the house as if she still lived there. Her paintings sit alongside some from Diego with photographs, journals, books, furniture, and art supplies.
I loved that it was filled with windows that looked out over the courtyard bringing the outdoors inside. There were many artistically intriguing rooms, and I wondered how people might live in such a place. The connecting rooms and central courtyard were unlike any traditional home I’d ever seen. It was lovely and unique but not comfortable.
Pro Tip: It is made of stone and concrete, and if you look up, you’ll see that even the stonework in the ceiling has patterns.
You can see Frida’s artist’s studio and the famous bed with a mirror mounted on the top so she could paint self-portraits while lying down and recovering from surgery or illness – or which she had many. More than anything, many collections, Hispanic arts, and oddities are on display in the house.
If you read the signs, you’ll know her death mask sits on her bed, and the urn holds her ashes in the adjacent room.
Fun Fact: The urn holding Frida’s ashes is shaped like a toad – a reference to Diego, who called himself the “toad-frog.”
Frida’s Dresses and Jewelry
Some rooms have been transformed to create the museum and gift shop; others now hold her various “adornments” in another section of the house across the courtyard.
There you’ll find displays of her famous clothing and accessories and many knickknacks, books and memorabilia in a museum setting. I wonder where she kept it all when she was alive – I didn’t see any closets.
If you read the signs, you’ll learn Frida made the displayed dolls you’ll find around the in her own likeness. Also, hidden among the displays of her clothing and jewelry is a white earring shaped like a hand that was gifted to her by Pablo Picasso (See self-portrait dedicated to Dr. Eloesser, 1940 where she wear the earring). Also displayed are her wheelchair, many corsets to help with her spine issues, crutches and other devices that helped her walk. There are also shoes, two different sizes, and one always with a lift to accommodate her one shorter leg.
Frida’s Final Words and Work
Seeing the corsets and other contraptions she needed to live are a poignant reminder that this woman had a tough life from a health perspective. Each day would have been a struggle filled with pain. She was only 47 years old when she died.
Her last painting, “Viva la Vida, Watermelons,” has never left the home. Roughly translated, it means, “Long live life.”
In her journals, some on display, the last thing she wrote was,
“I hope the end is joyful, and I hope never to return.”
Friday Kahlo
Visit Frida’s Kahlo House and Museum
It costs 230 pesos ($15) for a ticket and must be bought in advance online only to go inside Frida Kahlo’s house. Plan ahead because tickets sell out weeks in advance. If you want to take pictures, you’ll have to pay another 30 pesos at the door and receive a red sticker you must wear.
There’s a small gift shop in the house with prints, jewelry, postcards and a few other related items you can’t get from vendors on the street. The art and crafts store next to Frida’s house is worth stopping in, too if you’re looking for unique items.
Read more stories about things to do in Mexico here.
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