Mexican Muralists Envision New Nation Post-Revolution
Art history is a fascinating way to learn more about Mexico and the figures who shaped the nation — political, social, cultural. Through their interpretation of characters and events, the famed muralists — Diego Rivera, David Alfara Siqueiros, and Jose Clemente Orozco — gave definition to a new nation seeking to redefine itself post-1920 Revolution. […]
Looking for Frida Kahlo + Diego Rivera: Mexico City Art History Tour, October 2019
Arrive October 17 and depart October 21, 2019 We have not offered this program since 2017. Now is your chance to register and explore the lives of Frida and Diego through their art. One space open. Click on this link and then contact me: norma.schafer@icloud.com Looking for Frida Kahlo + Diego Rivera 2019
Mexican Folk Art for Sale: Vintage and Reproduction Ex-Votos
Ex-votos came to Mexico from Spain with the 1521 conquest. They are devotional prayer plaques applied to shrines in thanksgiving for a miracle received from a particular saint. These small votive offerings are hand-painted on tin and naive folk art. Usually the supplicant, the person giving thanks for the miracle, hired a local untrained artist […]
Details, Another View of Frida Kahlo at Casa Azul
In the last three years, I’ve probably visited Casa Azul, where Frida Kahlo was born and lived with Diego Rivera, over ten times. I come because I organize the art history study tour, Looking for Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Can you get to Mexico City next weekend? On this latest visit last Friday with […]
Looking for Frida Kahlo + Diego Rivera in Mexico City: Art History Study Tour,
Arrive Thursday, October 17 and depart Monday, October 21, 2019. Space available for 4 people. Cost is $795 per person. (Does not include lodging) Come to Mexico City to explore the lives of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera through their art. This is in-depth art history education at its best! We offer you a narrated, leisurely […]
Happy New Year 2017 From Mexico City
The clock strikes 2017. Yet the Zocalo in Mexico City today is almost empty. All museums and most shops are closed, too. Most Mexican families celebrate the new year at home. On New Years’ Eve last night there were only a few strollers in the Historic Center as everything closed up by 4 p.m. and people […]
Mexican Vintage Gold + Silver Jewelry Pop-Up Sale: Next
Another sweep through my jewelry collection. Getting closer to the essentials. Making some hard decisions about what to sell. Most of these pieces are from Oaxaca and you will recognize traditional designs many reminiscent of Frida Kahlo, with amazing filigree work, and excellent craftsmanship. Several are from visits to Mexico City and Michoacan. I rarely wear […]
Artist Hollie Taylor Creates Frida Kahlo Retablos
At Casa Azul in Coyoacan, Mexico City, one of the largest collections of folk art ex-votos (also called retablos) hangs along with pre-Columbian art and memorabilia collected by Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. They were avid supporters of artists who had no formal training but who represented the naive, populist art of Mexico. Ex-votos are […]
2016 Summer-Fall: Looking for Frida Kahlo + Diego Rivera–Mexico City Art History Study Tour
Come to Mexico City to explore the lives of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera through their art. This is in-depth art history education at its best! We offer you a narrated cultural immersion that you can miss if you visit on your own. Our expert guide is a bi-lingual Mexican art historian! Come solo, with […]
Mascaras Mexicanas: Mexican Masks — Dances, Dieties, Identity
A new temporary special exhibition at the Palacio Nacional (National Palace) on the Zocalo in Mexico City features hundreds of hand-made masks from towns and villages throughout Mexico. This is the same building that houses Diego Rivera murals, so if you go there soon, don’t miss this. Enter on side street through security, go to […]
2016 Looking for Frida Kahlo + Diego Rivera: Mexico City Art History Study Tour
Come to Mexico City to explore the lives of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera through their art. This is in-depth art history education at its best! We offer you a narrated cultural immersion that you can miss if you visit on your own. Come solo, with a partner or friend. Norma Schafer participates in all […]
Remembering Frida Kahlo: Icon of Passion and Pain
We ended the four-day Looking for Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera Art History Study Tour in Mexico City with a morning at Casa Azul and the Frida Kahlo Museum followed by an afternoon at the Dolores Olmedo Patiño Museum. (I’ll be setting 2016 dates soon. Contact me to be notified.) Frida Kahlo is a great […]
Evoking Frida Kahlo: Making Memory Altars and Shrines
Mexico is filled with altars that usually include sacred images and a Virgin of Guadalupe retablo. During Day of the Dead a family altar displays photographs of departed loved ones. We are taking this mixed media art workshop, based in Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca, Mexico, beyond the norm to create a three-dimensional altar suitable for display. Frida […]
Frida Kahlo Mania: See Her in the USA
Our iconic Frida Kahlo, her life, art, clothing, jewelry, pain, sorrow, tragedies, affairs and everything else worth examining about her is featured in 2015 exhibitions around the United States of America. Frida Kahlo: Art, Garden, Life is an exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden featuring the plants that Frida loved to wear and had in […]
Diego Rivera Murals in San Francisco: Critical Guide for Visiting
There are three Diego Rivera frescoes in San Francisco, California. To get in to see them all is not easy, but it is well worth the effort. It was an incredible treat to be able to see these frescoes up close and personal. A word of advice: it’s very important to plan and confirm your visits […]
Iconic Frida Kahlo: A Look Inside Her Closet
Frida Kahlo is iconic. I have described her as the 20th century’s Virgin of Guadalupe. Her legend endures. The Huffington Post has just published a photographic essay by Ishiuchi Miyako of her personal belongings, along with letters and photographs, first revealed decades after her death. These clothes and other life’s artifacts — letters, corsets, altered shoes […]
2016 Looking for Frida Kahlo + Diego Rivera: Mexico City Art History Study Tour
Come to Mexico City for an art history tour to explore the lives of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera through their art. This is in-depth art education at its best! We offer you a narrated immersion experience that you cannot get visiting these places on your own. Come solo, with a partner or friend. Norma […]
Around the Zocalo, Sunday in Mexico City
Sunday is family day in Mexico. Most people work a long six-day week often until eight or nine at night, so this is the only time they have together for an entire day. On this particular Sunday, the Zocalo is filled with families flying kites across the great expanse that looks as huge as Tiananmen Square in […]
Peacocks and Xoloitzcuintle: Dolores Olmedo Patiño Museum Garden
It’s not very common to get up close and personal with a peacock. Nor is it usual to come within a foot or two of the pre-Hispanic indigenous, Mexican hairless dog the Aztecs called xoloitzcuintle. Both are an integral part of the landscape at the Dolores Olmedo Patiño Museum in Mexico City that houses the […]
Looking for Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo: Garden at Casa Azul
Casa Azul, home of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera in Coyoacan, Mexico City, has a stunning garden. Once the home of Frida’s father and mother, and where she was born in 1907, Rivera bought the property after the family amassed huge debt paying for years of treatment after the bus accident that severely handicapped Frida […]
Thanksgiving and Frida Kahlo, Hospitals and Recovery
It’s Thanksgiving Day 2014. I’m at Duke Regional Hospital in Durham, North Carolina recovering from knee replacement surgery in a hospital bed that reclines to any position at the touch of a finger. In the past twenty-four hours, Frida Kahlo has often entered my mind. Mostly because she did such a miraculous job of […]
Looking for Frida Kahlo + Diego Rivera: Art History Tour 2015
Come to Mexico City for an art history tour to explore the lives of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera through their art. 2015 Schedule April 9 – 13, 2015 We will have a long weekend — 4 nights and 5 days, to learn about Diego Rivera‘s stunning Mexico City murals, visit Casa Azul where Diego and Frida […]
More About Mexico City: Museums
For the past week, before returning today to North Carolina for knee replacement surgery next week, I have been in Mexico City where some of the world’s best museums are found. I added on two days on my own before we started our fifth Looking for Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Art History Study Tour […]
Art History Tour: Mexican Muralism, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Mexico City
The Mexican Muralists, and especially the art of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo are the focus of our Mexico City Art History Tour: Looking for Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Arrive on November 13 and depart on November 17. This intensive study tour takes you into off-the-beaten path public art spaces and those that are more popular […]
Finding Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo: Photo Highlights
After a week in Mexico City with eight wonderful participants who came along for our Looking for Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Art History Study Tour, I came back to Oaxaca to immediately welcome four Australian women, all textile lovers. We have been all over town and out into the craft villages from sunrise to […]
New Dates: Looking for Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo
The Mexican Muralists, and especially the art of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo are the focus of our Mexico City Art History Tour. The Schedule: Arrive on November 13 and depart on November 17. If you are intrigued by the mystery of Frida’s relationship with her mentor Diego Rivera, whom she married twice, social and political […]
Dinner with Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera at Casa Azul
Guadalupe Rivera Marin remembers the elaborate meals served at Casa Azul, home of her father Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Lupe lived with them for a few years and claims to have taught Frida how to cook. Evidently, Frida loved to entertain but didn’t take much to the preparation. I wouldn’t either if it required […]
Looking for Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo: Mexico City Art History Tour
Come to Mexico City for an art history tour to explore the lives of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera through their art. We will have a long weekend — 4 nights and 5 days, November 13-17, 2014 — to learn about Diego Rivera‘s stunning Mexico City murals and visit Casa Azul where Diego and Frida Kahlo lived. […]
Shop Mexico The Artisan Sisters: Frida Kahlo Silver Earrings
Mexico is filled with Frida — the icon of South-of-the-Border Style harkens us back to a big, bold fashion statement that signals femininity, pride, and a look that says I’m worth noticing. From floral designs embroidered on blouses to fantastic, dangling earrings that move with you, Frida knew how to wear the clothing and jewelry […]
An Hour with Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera at Casa Azul
The line snaked around the corner of Casa Azul, home of Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, in Colonia del Carmen Coyoacan in Mexico City. Now a museum, the home is a mecca and tribute to the talent, strength and perseverance of a woman who endured pain and suffering in privacy while consorting with the […]