Looking for Frida Kahlo + Diego Rivera in Mexico City: Art History with a Textile Twist
Arrive Thursday, February 27 and depart Thursday, March 6, 2025, 7 nights, 8 days Come to Mexico City to explore the lives of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera through their art, and meet contemporary Mexican fashion designers who are making an impact on international style. This is an in-depth art history and textile education at its best! […]
ORIGINAL 2023 Textile Extravaganza: 400+ Mexican Artisans
Coming up in Mexico City from November 15-19, is ORIGINAL. This is a major textile and folk art event that will attract visitors from all over the world. We have organized a long weekend tour to Mexico City that will take us to ORIGINAL every day where we will meet and have private conversations with […]
Virgin of Guadalupe Textiles Show in Mexico City
Created and curated by Oaxaca folk art collector Linda Hanna, this is a not-to-be-missed exhibition of hand-woven and embroidered textiles — an Homage to the Virgin of Guadalupe and who she is. The textiles — huipiles, rebozos, and other unique pieces — feature the image of our revered Mexican Mother, La Virgen de Guadalupe. This […]
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
Sunday Afternoon on the Last Aztec Lagoon: Xochimilco
We packed it in. After a Sunday morning at Casa Azul followed by seeing the largest private collection of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo paintings at the Museo Dolores Olmedo, we took an UBER (safe, easy, the only way to get around in Mexico City, despite USA negatives) to the Embarcadero de Nativitas in Xochimilco […]
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 […]
Mexico City Architecture: Luis Barragan House Photo Essay
True Confession: In all the years I’ve been visiting Mexico City, I never made it to the Casa Luis Barragan in Colonia Condesa. One of the benefits of staying in this neighborhood is to make a pilgrimage to the home where this disciple of Corbusier lived. You MUST make a reservation in advance to visit. […]
Safety in Mexico City. Advice for Travelers. Featured in Mexico News Daily.
Mexico News Daily asked me to write about SAFETY IN MEXICO CITY. The feature story was published today! Let me know what you think. *** When The New York Times picked Mexico City as the #1 among 52 places to go in the world in 2016, I felt like doing a somersault. Finally, my much […]
Have you been to Mexico City? Is it SAFE? Share your comments.
Hi, dear readers: I’m planning to write a feature article about Mexico City safety, and would like to hear your opinions about visiting there. Here are some ideas: Where do you live? Why did you go to Mexico City? How was your experience arriving at the Mexico City airport? What about getting a taxi to […]
From Mexico City: Under the Cathedral, An Aztec Empire
Far below Mexico City’s Metropolitan Cathedral, the largest in the Americas, lies the archeological treasure trove that was once Tenochtitlan, the City of the Aztecs. It is known as Templo Mayor. First discovered and excavated in 1978, archeologists believe there are seven pyramid levels beneath what is now visible at the site next to the great […]
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 […]
Location Change: Where To Buy Bus Tickets, Mexico City
October 2016, MEXICO CITY — The place to buy bus tickets has changed. It is no longer next to the McDonald’s across the zocalo. It is here, a few store fronts down the row: This is a little ticket stand selling ADO bus tickets on the same stretch of shops lining the street opposite the […]
Happy Birthday, Mexico: Celebrating Independence Day
On September 16, 1810, Mexico declared her Independence from Spain. Hidalgo, a priest from Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato, gave out El Grito, the cry for freedom and the war began. The Spanish conquest of Mexico began in 1521, and after almost 300 years of occupation, the country followed the United States independence model to set itself […]
At the Dolores Olmedo Museum: Pablo O’Higgins Prints
The entire Frida Kahlo permanent exhibition of paintings at the Dolores Olmedo Patiño Museum in Mexico City is on loan to the Faberge Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, until April 30. We discovered this last Sunday as we made our afternoon visit as part of the Looking for Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera Art History […]
Pablo O’Higgins and Mexican Muralism: A Weekend in Mexico City
Mexico City is Number One on the New York Times recommended travel destinations. CDMX has it all, they say, and I agree. This is probably the tenth time I’ve been here in the last two years for the art history study tour I organize, Looking for Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. New Dates: June 30-July 3, […]
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 […]
Diego Rivera Murals at Secretariat of Public Education (SEP), Mexico City
Diego Rivera, Mexico’s famed muralist, returned there from Europe in 1921 at the invitation of Jose Vasconcelos, Mexico’s Secretary of Public Education, to paint three floors of murals in the national headquarters that was once a Franciscan convent. From 1923 to 1928, Rivera worked in the building with assistants to create 125 panels that would […]
Tenochtitlan: Aztecs Under the Cathedral, Mexico City
The Aztecs dominated Mexico for over two hundred years and left a legacy for many more centuries than they existed. They created modern Mexico and called themselves Mexicas. Remains of the Aztec Empire and their city Tenochtitlan continue to be discovered in the heart of Mexico City after archeologists started excavations in 1978. Yesterday, […]
Is Mexico Safe? My Experience
Is Mexico safe? I just got back to Oaxaca after traveling for three weeks in Mexico City, Estado de Mexico and Michoacan. In Michoacan there is a U.S. State Department Travel Advisory, (I include this link to safety vs. sensationalism.) I went to Morelia, Patzcuaro and rural villages. I traveled far out into the countryside in […]
El Rebozo Made in Mexico Exhibit, Franz Mayer Museum, Mexico City
Getting to see this exhibit El Rebozo Made in Mexico before it closes Sunday, August 30, 2015, has been a priority for me since I first heard about the planning for it several years ago from British fashion designer-textile artist Hilary Simon. I scheduled this Mexico City stopover of two days before returning to the […]
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 […]
Forgotten Murals of Abelardo Rodriguez Market, Mexico City
The fresco murals painted by Diego Rivera‘s disciples on the walls of the Abelardo Rodriguez Market in Mexico City are a historic art treasure at risk. Most on the first floor are deteriorating, peeling, fading, etched by attempts of graffiti at knife point, hidden by stalls, storage areas and obscured by dust. Yet, they are […]
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 […]