Frida Kahlo

Amid a field of spiky agave and low scrubby plants, Frida Kahlo settles into the earth and looks directly toward us. This black-and-white photograph was made in 1937 by Toni Frissell, an American photographer who built her name shooting fashion for magazines like Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. Trading her usual polished studios for the open Mexican countryside, Frissell caught Frida in the traditional Tehuana dress she adored, her long white skirt spread across the ground and her braided hair tied with bows. That distinctive style became as recognizable as Frida's paintings themselves.

The charm of the picture lies in its honesty. Rather than performing for a portrait, Frida seems simply at ease, rooted in the land she came from and framed by the plants of her home. Frissell knew how to put people at rest in front of her lens, and that quiet trust comes through clearly. Two women from very different corners of the creative world met for a moment here, and the result is an unusually tender view of an artist we usually know through her own bold self-portraits.