Trustees of Frida Kahlo’s estate and allied experts on Thursday denounced as forgeries a private collection purporting to own 1,200 artifacts and undiscovered works by the renowned Mexican artist.
The group’s statement was meant to cast doubt on the collection of Carlos and Leticia Noyola, which is on display at a central Mexico museum and appears in two recently published books about Kahlo’s art.
The trustees asserted that the works were not Kahlo’s at a news conference held in the garden of the Frida Kahlo Museum “blue house” in Mexico City where she was born, lived with her artist-husband Diego Rivera and died in 1954.
Guadalupe Rivera Marin, a daughter of Diego Rivera from a previous marriage who lived there with Kahlo, said the artist painted relatively few works because of her lifelong health problems.
With just over 400 paintings, drawings and notes making up the official collection, it’s unlikely that a collection three times as large would have escaped notice, the experts said.
The panel also said some types of paint used in works in the disputed collection don’t match the kinds of paint Kahlo preferred.
The Noyolas said in a statement quoted in Thursday’s edition of the newspaper El Universal that they had been “falsely accused” and maintained that the artwork is genuine.
The trustees said they receive no financial benefit from the sale of Kahlo’s physical artwork, but only profit from rights to reproduce her art in photos.
James Oles, an art professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, told reporters that no reputable authority has authenticated the supposed “new” works.
He said he doubted their authenticity, but would participate in an examination by an independent and reputable institute.
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