42 Artists Magazine April 2020
a time with her famous artist-husband,
Diego Rivera, and where she died at
the age of 47. Kahlo’s second-floor stu-
dio overlooks the surrounding gardens
and they, along with the colorful
home, are now a museum dedicated to
showcasing her life and work.
Kahlo was deeply interested in bot-
any and herbalism, perhaps motivated
by a desire to seek alternative cures to
the lifelong pain she endured as a
result of a childhood bout with polio
and a traffic accident at the age of 18.
In the many self-portraits that domi-
nate her ouevre, flowers plucked from
her garden often perch on her head
like a crown, while vines and other
natural elements surround her. In the
painting Roots (pages 38–39), Kahlo
depicts herself reclining with an
aggressive vine bursting from an open
cavity in her chest. She appears to be
the source of life for the vine and,
although she remained childless, she
dreamed of being fertile ground. In
2015, the New York Botanical Garden
launched the blockbuster exhibition
“Frida Kahlo: Art, Garden, Life,”
cementing the three major elements
together in its presentation of this
important artist’s work.SEEKING ESCAPISM
As with Kahlo, the garden offered
French Orientalist painter Jacques
Majorelle (1886–1962) painting
inspiration (see Majorelle’s garden,
opposite), as well as refuge from pain
and poor health. In 1923, Majorelle
moved from France to Morocco for
a change of climate. There he built a
house in Marrakesh that he painted
the very same blue as Kahlo’s La Casa
Azul. He surrounded his house with
four acres of land, later expanded to
ten acres, which he cultivated into
extraordinary gardens. His paintings,
featuring the landscape and people of
northern Africa, achieved some atten-
tion, but it was Majorelle’s garden that
became his most significant work.
The artist was a passionate ama-
teur botanist, and for almost 40 years
he nurtured his garden with endless
new plant species, which he acquired
from all over the world. Maintaining
the garden was costly, so MajorellePicture of Paeonia lactifl ora from Xian’e Changchun Album
by Giuseppe Castiglione
album leaf, ink and colors on silk, 13x10⁴⁄₅
WIKIMEDIA COMMONSThe Monet Family in Their Garden at Argenteuil
by Édouard Manet
oil on canvas, 24x39¼
BEQUEST OF JOAN WHITNEY PAYSON, 1975