Google Arts & Culture Launches Largest Digital Frida Kahlo Retrospective

Google Arts & Culture has launched 'Faces of Frida', the largest digital collection of works and objects related to Frida Kahlo. The online retrospective brings together over 800 items from 33 partner museums across 7 countries, including paintings, personal photographs, letters, magazines, and clothing. The project is a collaboration between Google Arts & Culture and a network of international museums and experts. Kate Haw, director of the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, noted that 54 rare documents from their collections provide deeper insight into Kahlo's relationships with figures such as historian Florence Arquin, artist Emmy Lou Packard, photographer Nickolas Muray, collector Chester Dale, and writer John Weatherwax. Participating Mexican institutions include the Museo Casa Estudio Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, which contributed historical photographs and a Street View virtual tour; the Fototeca Nacional; and the National Museum of Art in Mexico City, which provided a high-resolution digitalized artwork via Art Camera. Some works come from private collections never before seen online, such as 'View of New York', depicting Kahlo looking out from the Barbizon Plaza Hotel in 1932. Street View also allows virtual visits to iconic locations like the Casa Azul, where the artist was born, lived, and died.