This diptych is formed by two skate decks made of 7 ply grade A Canadian maple wood.
©2025 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
“The Two Fridas” (1939) is like a double portrait with emotional surgery: two Fridas, one with a broken heart and the other with a whole one, sitting side by side as if they had booked a couples therapy session… with themselves.
Each dressed to reflect a part of her identity—the European Frida in a Victorian lace dress, the Mexican Frida in her traditional Tehuana attire—these twin selves are connected by an artery that flows from one heart to the other, complete with surgical clamps and a love that’s now gone: Diego Rivera’s.
Painted just after their divorce, the work is an exercise in sentimental anatomy. But rather than wallowing in self-pity, Frida offers us a powerful, unsettling, and beautiful image where pain takes a seat alongside dignity. The exposed hearts are not a desperate cry, but a statement of identity: no heartbreak comes without a touch of reinvention.
“The Two Fridas” doesn’t just show us a divided artist—it reveals a woman capable of facing herself and keeping herself company. And she does it with drama, yes, but also with a kind of visual irony that turns tragedy into the sublime. Because if anyone knew how to turn scars into unforgettable art, it was Frida.
