Diego Rivera Introduced Frida Kahlo To Clare Luce

Diego Rivera

Even though Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera were separated in November of 1938, they still kept in contact. Frida was preparing for her first one-woman exhibition in New York City at the Julien Levy Gallery. Diego suggested she meet Clare Boothe Luce, who was married to Time Magazine founder Henry Luce. Diego gave Frida a letter of introduction to Clare.

In his book, "My Art, My Life," Diego recounted: “I had imagined that Frida would find Mrs. Luce an interesting person to know, but she didn’t take to her at all. She found her cold, brittle and impenetrably defensive.”

Frida would meet Clare at her opening reception at the Levy Gallery on November 1, 1938. This was twelve days after their mutual friend, Dorothy Hale, died. Clare commissioned Frida to paint a portrait of Dorothy. Instead, Frida painted a haunting rendition of Dorothy falling to her death from an apartment window at the Hampshire House on Central Park South.

Clare was outraged and wanted to destroy the painting when she received it. Fortunately, the painting survived some slight overpainting and nearly twenty years in a storage facility. Today, the picture is not only hailed as one of Kahlo’s most brilliant paintings, but it has unraveled a fascinating mystery about the life and death of Dorothy. Perhaps Diego’s words give an interesting insight into why Frida intuitively painted what she felt instead of what she was hired to do by the powerful Clare Luce?

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