Image credits:

NICKOLAS MURAY, 1892-1965 American (b. Hungary) Frida with Olmeca Figurine, Coyoacan 1939, Carbon process print

NICKOLAS MURAY, 1892-1965 American (b. Hungary) Frida on White Bench, New York 1939, Carbon process print

NICKOLAS MURAY, 1892-1965 American (b. Hungary) Classic Frida (with Magenta Rebozo) 1939, Carbon process print

During his long career, Nickolas Muray photographed many important people from the political, artistic and social arenas. His work was regularly featured in Harper's Bazaar, Vanity Fair, McCall's and the Ladies Home Journal. Approximately fifty photographic portraits taken of Frida Kahlo comprise the exhibition Frida Kahlo: Through the Lens of Nickolas Muray. The photographs, dating from 1937 to 1941, explore Muray's unique perspective; in the 1930s and 1040s he was Frida Kahlo's friend, lover and confidant. Muray's photographs bring to light Kahlo's deep interest in her Mexican heritage, her life and the people significant to her.

Born in Hungary, Nickolas Muray (1892-1965) became a successful New York fashion and commercial photographer known for his portraits of celebrities. Having experimented with color in his work from early on, he found his most colorful model in Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), whom he met in Mexico in 1931. Muray photographed Kahlo more than any of his other subjects. Muray and Kahlo engaged in a decade-long affair, and he hoped to eventually marry her. In 1940, Kahlo's husband, Mexican mural painter Diego Rivera, initiated a divorce, but the two soon remarried. Nevertheless, Muray and Kahlo remained close friends until her death in 1954.

Courtesy of the Nickolas Muray Photo Archives. Tour development by Smith Kramer Inc.