Highly Anticipated Frida: The Making of an Icon Opens January 19 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Exhibit, curated by Mari Carmen Ramírez and organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, traces Frida Kahlo’s posthumous transformation from unknown painter to global brand

On January 19, 2026, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston will debut the stunning Frida: The Making of an Icon to the Houston art scene.

Featuring 35 works by Frida Kahlo that capture the arc of her artistic legacy, the exhibit presents Kahlo and her art within the context of works by five successive generations of artists: painters, sculptors and photographers who mined Kahlo’s paintings and personal history to claim her as their own. Frida: The Making of an Icon, travels to the Tate Modern, London, after its premiere in Houston.

Key contributions from the archives of the Documents Project of the ICAA (International Center for the Arts of the Americas) at the MFAH and Museo Frida Kahlo in Mexico City will be featured.

Photographs and archival material, including the artist’s clothing, jewelry and other personal items culled from Kahlo’s personal collections and other sources, provide additional context for the artworks.

Frida: The Making of an Icon addresses how artists across five decades have responded to Kahlo’s work and appropriated including Kahlo’s Surrealist contemporaries of the 1930s to the communities within the Chicana/o movement of the 1970s, Mexico’s and the U.S. feminist and gay rights activism of the 1980s and 1990s and the identity-focused generations of more recent decades. A gallery of the exhibition is devoted to “Fridamania,” displaying more than 200 objects generated by the global, mass-market production of Frida Kahlo merchandise.

Gary Tinterow, director and Margaret Alkek Williams chair of the MFAH, said, “This Museum has been at the forefront of Latin American art since the founding in 2001 of the International Center for the Arts of the Americas. While there have been numerous Frida Kahlo exhibitions around the world since the 1970s, Mari Carmen Ramírez has leveraged the unparalleled resources of our ICAA to document and assemble a fascinating group of objects that attest to the enduring appeal of Kahlo’s art and life.”

Mari Carmen Ramírez, Wortham Curator of Latin American Art at the MFAH and founding director of the Museum’s International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA) stated that Frida: The Making of an Icon attempts to separate Frida Kahlo the artist from Frida Kahlo the phenomenon.

“The exhibition reveals how the different facets of Kahlo’s complex persona(lity), which she so carefully crafted and projected, were adapted again and again over her decades-long transformation into an icon. As a result, her image became subsumed within the desires, fears and hopes of artists and activists who transformed it into innovative proposals. The exhibition re-establishes Kahlo’s own identity and asserts her persistent relevance to contemporary art as well as activism over the past 70 years,” said Ramirez.

Accompanying the exhibition at the MFAH will be a film program, family and community events, and a “Talking Frida” series of conversations with international artists, curators and writers on the varied facets of Frida Kahlo’s legacy, on site and live streamed.

Related Programming:

• Conversation | “Talking Frida”, Sat. Jan 24, 2 PM – James Oles, consulting curator for the exhibition, sits down with curators Miguel A. López and Tobias Ostrander, artist Amalia Mesa-Bains, and documentary filmmaker Trisha Ziff to explore Frida Kahlo’s story and how the artist grew from little-known painter to global icon, as well as the ways in which she continues to inspire artists today.
• Drop-in Tour | “Frida: The Making of an Icon”, various times and days – Enjoy a docent
  guided tour of the exhibition.
• Tour & Toast | “Frida: The Making of an Icon”, various times and days – Join fellow art
  enthusiasts for a private group tour through the exhibition Frida: The Making of an Icon. Explore and learn about Frida Kahlo’s life and legacy. After the tour, head to Cafe Leonelli with the group for a complimentary drink.
• Frida | Film, Feb. 6 & 7 7 PM-9PM, – Frida Kahlo (Salma Hayak) was able to channel the
  pain of a crippling injury and her tempestuous marriage to Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina)
  into her art.

TICKET INFORMATION: Visit here.

Pictures courtesy of MFAH.