During Muray’s studio session in New York he was completely captivated by Frida and her energy. She was wearing a rebozo – the traditional Mexican shawl – in magenta at the time and Nick took a close-up of her face wrapped in the stole in which the light almost seems to come from her face. In an alternative shot Frida leans her back against the wall and seems almost wrapped in a mystical aura, with her hands in her lap and a pose that cannot fail to recall the classical iconography of the Madonna.
If the passion the two felt for each other at the time is often referenced in Frida’s paintings from those dates, an excellent case being the famous painting ‘Xòchitl’ from 1938, these photographs mirror Muray’s feelings for Kahlo, who never appeared more beautiful and sensual than in these images. On the back of one of the prints that Nick made, however, it was Frida who inserted a dedication that read: ‘Nick, with all my heart, with all my love! With all my memory I think of you’.
Given the great success of the exhibition in New York, André Breton invited Frida to exhibit in Paris and London as well. Rivera insisted that his wife attend the opening of both exhibitions, even writing letters of introduction for her, but Frida was not sure she wanted to leave home so much, partly because of Diego’s own infidelity. After his betrayal with her sister Cristina, Frida would no longer have the same attitude towards her husband, and despite her affair with Nick and other little flings, she lived in constant fear of abandonment and betrayal, and feared that adding distance between her and Digo would only open the way to more pain.
Nevertheless, Frida decided to leave for Paris. Arriving in the French capital, however, luck seemed not to be on her side: first she ended up in hospital with food poisoning, then she realised that the exhibition would never be ready in time for the opening because Breton kept adding and replacing pieces to be exhibited, and was broke, which forced her to lend him money to cover some expenses. Frida was shocked to see that the circle of surrealists spent more time in cafés than working in their studios and decided to leave, cancelling the London leg of the exhibition.
During those months, Muray writes passionate letters to Frida who, on the one hand, replies to him professing all her love for him and, on the other, tells him how she can never leave Diego and that Nick should look for other company. On his return to New York, seeing that he was considering her advice, Frida decides to return to Mexico for good, to Diego.
The relationship between Muray and Kahlo begins to falter. Nick, who had also supported Frida financially during her stay in Europe to make her independent from Diego, begins to realise that despite Rivera’s many betrayals, Frida would never leave him. And when she shortens her stay in New York to return to the arms of a faithless husband, Nick opens his heart to her in two intense letters where he reveals that he is aware that he has given his whole heart to a woman who had only given him half of it, and that their relationship could never change. The two letters reach her on the same day that Diego asks her for a divorce.
In the autumn of 1939 Muray returned to Mexico again and visited Kahlo. To this period date a series of portraits of Frida surrounded by the Mexican elements she loved so much, such as her house, her pet fawn named Granizo, or her garden. In a close-up, Frida is wearing the hand-shaped earrings that Picasso gave her in Paris.
Among the many photos Muray took of Frida during this visit, one in particular stands out, a portrait in which Kahlo holds an Olmec figurine. Nick surprises the viewer by connecting Frida to her pre-Columbian roots, and at the same time to her tortured body. As our eye runs from left to right, we encounter three focal points in the image: Frida’s face almost absorbed in contemplation, the idol statuette she holds in her hand, placing it next to her own face, and, on the far right, a plant pot made of ceramic shards with a small doll with a broken body in the centre.