logo
episode-header-image
Sep 2023
37m 25s

Frida Kahlo: Do You Think of Me Some Tim...

Getty
About this episode

In 1944, Frida Kahlo is at a crossroads, both in terms of her health and her career. In April of that year, with World War II dragging on, she writes to her gallerist—and former lover—Julien Levy. In this tender and personal letter, she moves from the logistical challenges of sending art across national borders during wartime, to describing her painful new steel corsets, to asking after her many friends in New York, where Levy lives. Unpacking this letter and exploring Kahlo’s words written in her own hand provides a new understanding of an artist who has become larger than life in the years since her death at age 47.

In this episode of Recording Artists: Intimate Addresses, host Tess Taylor highlights Kahlo’s vibrant personality, tracing how her artistic career developed alongside her long-running health struggles and her now-iconic style and persona. Anna Deavere Smith voices the letter. Photographer and poet Rachel Eliza Griffiths, whose work often addresses pain and the body, provides her artist’s insight while historian Circe Henestrosa, who co-curated the Kahlo exhibition Making Herself Up at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2018, shares charming anecdotes and important details of Kahlo’s life.

The Getty Patron Program is a proud sponsor of this podcast.

Up next
Aug 6
Experiments in Art and Technology: What could be more beautiful than a laser? (Bonus)
Laser physicist Billy Klüver really loved his lasers. But what divided the beauty of the laser (at least in Klüver’s eyes) from art? As the co-founder of the nonprofit group Experiments in Art and Technology, drawing the line between art and engineering came up a lot. In this bon ... Show More
4m 36s
Apr 2025
It’s a Likely Threat (Bonus)
What makes good art good and what makes that experience stick with you? Engineer Billy Klüver, who co-founded the nonprofit group Experiments in Art and Technology, has a great answer to that question—but we couldn’t fit it in our third season. In this bonus episode, we’ll hear K ... Show More
4m 45s
Jan 2025
Why Doesn’t He Dance a Little Better? (Bonus)
Did you know Robert Rauschenberg was fired by John Cage? Us either—until we heard Rauschenberg telling his side of the story to Barbara Rose in one of the interviews in Getty’s archives. We’re sharing clips from the archive as bonus episodes while you’re waiting on season four. I ... Show More
4m 4s
Recommended Episodes
Aug 2022
Reflecting on 25 Years of the Getty Center
“I was there for the groundbreaking of the Getty Center. I was there for opening day of the Getty Center. I think for a lot of people, it said LA has arrived.” After nearly 15 years in the making, the Getty Center opened to much fanfare on December 16, 1997. Perched on a mountain ... Show More
24m 43s
Jan 2021
Reflections: Kelly Davis on Timothy O’Sullivan
We’ve asked members of the Getty community to share short, personal reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. These recordings feature stories related to our daily lives. This week, metadata specialist Kelly Davis longs for a hike in the Sierras as she views a ... Show More
3m 19s
Mar 2022
Zaha Hadid's Cincinnati Arts Center
When the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati opened to the public in 2003 it wowed both the public and critics. With its undulating curves and galleries that interlock, it was the first major project that the renowned architect had completed, and also the first American museum ... Show More
11m 10s
Aug 2023
Emily Mills: The Reflex Blue Show #247
Emily Mills was at the HOW Design Live conference in Nashville to talk about transition as a creative professional. And as the founder of Sketch Academy, she was also spending quite a bit of time sketch noting the event itself from the exhibit hall – for those who want more about ... Show More
18m 42s
Sep 2011
How the World Trade Center Memorial Works
The World Trade Center was once a global symbol of progress. Since the attacks of Sept. 11, the area has undergone a massive rebuilding process. Chuck and Josh take a look at the World Trade Center, its memorial and its symbolism in this special episode. Learn more about your ad- ... Show More
43m 3s
Feb 2021
The Presidency and the People: How to Form a More Perfect Union
In commemoration of Presidents Day, President Bill Clinton traces the evolution of the presidency from America’s founding through modern history and explores how the best presidents used the office to build an America that more closely resembled our highest ideals and aspirations ... Show More
59m 20s
Oct 2023
In the Studio: PAC NYC
September 2023 sees the opening of PAC NYC – the Perelman Performing Arts Center in New York. It’s the final building in the new piazza, situated on the site of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, which was destroyed on the 11th September 2001, when hijackers seized US pas ... Show More
27m 16s
Dec 2021
Alberto Ríos — December Morning in the Desert
Standing at the edge of a desert, surveying the stars on a December morning, the speaker in this poem observes the everything of everything. He is so small; the universe is so loud and so silent. Thinking about the enormity of all this, he thinks of the smallness of the hearts of ... Show More
15m 57s
Aug 2023
Right to be Forgotten
In online news, stories live forever. The tipsy photograph of you at the college football game? It’s there. That news article about the political rally you were marching at? It’s there. A charge for driving under the influence? That’s there, too. But what if... it wasn’t? Several ... Show More
54m 26s