Rubert García, “Homenaje A Frida Kahlo”. Courtesy of The Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Photo by Ricardo Romo.
The art exhibit, Frida: The Making of an Icon, currently showing at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, has been a spectacular success. Gary Tinterow, Director of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, commented that “Frida Kahlo occupies an extraordinary place in the history of Western art of the last century.” In his assessment, Frida’s “paintings and her story…have touched millions of people worldwide with an intensity rivaled only by the life and art of Vincent van Gogh.”
Mari Carmen Ramirez, Curator of the exhibit, wrote that although Frida Kahlo had been well-known to members of the artistic and cultural intelligentsia in the United States dating back to the early 1930s—when she accompanied Diego Rivera to San Francisco, New York, and Detroit (1930-33) — “her work and image did not circulate broadly in the U.S. until the 1970s, when the Chicana/o movement, or El Movimiento, turned her into a standard-bearer for its own cultural and political causes.”
Ester Hernandez, “If This Is Death, I Like It”. Courtesy of The Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Photo by Ricardo Romo.
During the early rise of the Chicano Movement, community and student activists, as well as writers and artists, drew inspiration from Mexican history and culture. Across the Southwest, Chicano artists painted murals that featured resistance by the Aztec chief Cuauhtémoc, as well as hailed the Mexican Revolution heroes Emiliano Zapata and the women soldiers known as the Adelitas. Ramirez notes that Chicanos “strongly identified with and promoted [Frida’s] radical political views and activism regarding notions of ethnicity and class, which paralleled the focus of their own resistance to dominant white Anglo society.”
Rupert Garcia, “Septiembre” [Calendar for Galería de la Raza]. Courtesy of The Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Photo by Ricardo Romo.
In the United States, Frida’s emergence as a cultural icon exploded after the publication of author Hayden Herrera’s Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo in 1983. For Chicano artists, the iconization of the Mexican artist had begun earlier, in the late 1970s. Chicano artists from the Galería de la Raza, the community art space in the San Francisco Mission District, took the lead in raising her profile in the US. The Galería de la Raza oranized an homenaje (homage) to Frida Kahlo in the late 1970s that proved transformational. Texas native Carmen Lomas Garza led the artistic charge forming a planning committee, assisted by Amalia Mesa-Bains, Rupert Garcia, María Pinedo, and Kate Connell. The Frida homage opened as Galería’s Día de Muertos on November 1-2, 1978.
Carmen Lomas Garza, Altar for Frida Kahlo (Altar para Frida Kahlo). Courtesy of The Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Photo by Ricardo Romo.
Carmen Lomas Garza, whose lithograph of a community dance is featured in the Houston exhibit, moved to San Francisco in 1976, where she became involved with Galería de la Raza and the broader Latina/o artist and activist community. Lomas Garza had years of experience as an art activist. She participated in the Chicano movement organizing in Kingsville, San Antonio, and Austin. She explicitly framed her practice as a response to discrimination and racism, describing her art as a way to “heal the wounds” of those experiences and to provide affirming images for Mexican American audiences.
Marcos Raya, Frida the Last Portrait (Frida el último retrato). Courtesy of The Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Photo by Ricardo Romo.
During her early years as an artist, Amalia Mesa-Bains, a native of Northern California and also an activist artist, installed her first altar for a Day of the Dead exhibit titled “Five Woman Altar” at San Francisco’s Galeria de la Raza. Among the five women featured in the 1975 altar was Frida Kahlo. At the Galeria de la Raza, Mesa-Bains also prepared ofrendas for Frida and Diego [1977] and Homage to Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz [1981]. These two important exhibits demonstrated her devotion to feminist subjects.
Juan R. Fuentes, “Frida”. Courtesy of The Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Photo by Ricardo Romo.
Allied with Lomas Garza and Mesa-Bains, Rubert Garcia also paid homage to Frida. His Frida image emerged as the first and most widely recognized of the Chicano Frida portraits. Garcia’s silkscreen prints of the Mexican artist with Indigenous skin tones are among the earliest Frida screenprint renditions. His Frida was inspired by a 1973 trip to the Museo Frida Kahlo. He created the Fridas for the “September” page in Galería’s 1975 poster calendar, a yearly fundraising effort. One hundred and twenty-five calendars circulated Garia’s Kahlo image to the Northern California Chicano/a community.
Art historian Ramón Favela noted that Garcia’s use of “Frida’s distinctive close-up face was an expression of indigenous and political, cultural, artistic pride in things Mexican and non-European.” Curator of the Houston exhibit Mari Carmen Ramirez suggested that by highlighting Kahlo as a Brown, Chicana/o, and Latina/o artist, by extension have drawn attention to their own racial and cultural identities.
Tony Ortega, “Frida y Diego nos muestran México “ (Frida and Diego Show).Courtesy of The Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Photo by Ricardo Romo.
East Los Angeles artist Richard Duardo created two of the Fridas in the Houston show and helped print and reimagine a demure portrait of Frida by Raul Caracoza. The three Duardo prints received prominent exhibit space in the Frida: Making of an Icon exhibition. Duardo was my student both at Franklin High School near East Los Angeles and in a summer Upward Bound program at Occidental College. I am honored that my long-time association with Duardo helped connect him to Texas collectors and institutions.
Richard Duardo prints. L-R: Raul Caracoza “Young Frida” [Green] , Richard Duardo, “Salma as Frida”, and Richard Duardo art [Frida with Loteria]. Courtesy of The Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Photo by Ricardo Romo.
Yreina D. Cervantez, “Homenaje a Frida Kahlo (Homage to Frida Kahlo)”. Courtesy of The Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Photo by Ricardo Romo.
The many Chicano/a artistic renditions of Frida in the Houston exhibition and the insightful essays in the exhibit catalogue stimulate thoughts about gender, race, and class. Frida dressed herself as a mestiza and Indigena, but she painted herself as white or European. Chicanos saw her as a Brown goddess. Charlene Villasenor Black noted in the catalogue that “by emphasizing the Indigenous aspects of Kahlo’s mestiza heritage, Chicana/o artists elevated her as a Brown icon.”
Judy Baca as Las Pachuca. Photos by Donna Deitch. From Las Tres Marias. Courtesy of The Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Photo by Ricardo Romo.
Influenced by the artist Rupert Garcia, others “created portraits that also emphasized their own Indigenous heritage.” Frida’s openness about sexuality, feminism, and her activism also inspired Chicana/o artists. I loved the Frida: The Making of an Icon show and learned much about Frida Kahlo, who was a very complicated person. She has become a world-wide recognized artist, and she continues to inspire Chicana/o artists to explore their own heritage and their own lived experiences.
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Copyright 2026 by Ricardo Romo. Note: *** My wife Harriett and I donated nearly 40 of our Duardo artworks to UT San Antonio, the San Antonio Museum of Art, and the McNay Art Museum. We were the only collectors who donated Duardo art to UT San Antonio, and at press time, we are still checking if those prints in the Frida show listed as part of the UT San Antonio collection were from our donation. The catalogue identified two of the portraits, one by Caracoza and one by Duardo, as prints loaned by the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, gifts of Harriett and Ricardo Romo. All image credits as indicated above.