Frida Kahlo's only known voice recording possibly found in Mexico

Frida Kahlo's only known voice recording possibly found in Mexico
National Sound Library of Mexico believes audio is of artist reading from her essay Portrait of Diego during the pilot of radio show El Bachiller

Steph Harmon

@stephharmon
Wed 12 Jun 2019 23.43 EDT Last modified on Thu 13 Jun 2019 00.08 EDT

Frida Kahlo might have one of the most recognisable and commodified faces in the art world, but what did her voice sound like?

French photographer Giséle Freund once described it as “melodious and warm”, but thanks to the National Sound Library of Mexico, we may now know for sure.

The library have unearthed what they believe could be the first known voice recording of Kahlo, taken from a pilot episode of 1955 radio show El Bachiller, which aired after her death in 1954.

The episode featured a profile of Kahlo’s artist husband Diego Rivera. In it, she reads from her essay Portrait of Diego, which was taken from the catalogue of a 1949 exhibition at the Palace of Fine Arts, celebrating 50 years of Rivera’s work.

“He is a gigantic, immense child, with a friendly face and a sad gaze,” she says, as translated by Agence France-Presse. (A different English translation of the text can be found on Google Arts & Culture.)

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/jun/13/frida-kahlos-only-known-voice-recording-may-have-been-found-in-mexico