Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: Time to Blaine a chalk rewarding and and we are
Speaker 1: continuing on with our look into the life of twentieth
Speaker 1: century Mexican artist Frieda Collo, who's best known for the
Speaker 1: sometimes enigmatic and often haunting self portraits that she painted. Once,
Speaker 1: when asked why she painted so many self portraits, Frieda
Speaker 1: famously replied, because I'm so often alone, because I am
Speaker 1: the subject I know best. So we got a taste
Speaker 1: of that aloneness in the first part of this podcast
Speaker 1: when we discussed her battle with polio as a child
Speaker 1: and then the bus accident in her teenage years that
Speaker 1: left her bedrooden for several months, and we kind of
Speaker 1: talked about how that tragic accident changed the entire course
Speaker 1: of her life, causing her to give up her original
Speaker 1: dream of going to medical school and instead focus on painting,
Speaker 1: an occupation that she took up actually while she was
Speaker 1: confined to her bed recovering from her injuries. We also
Speaker 1: talked a little bit about her political interest, how she
Speaker 1: got more interested in Mexican politics in the first place,
Speaker 1: getting involved with the Communist Party with the encouragement of
Speaker 1: her friend Tina Madotti, who was an Italian photographer and
Speaker 1: a supposed Soviet spy. And of course it was probably
Speaker 1: that political involvement, or at least the circles that had
Speaker 1: her running in rather than her art alone, that put
Speaker 1: her back in the path of celebrated muralist Diego Rivera,
Speaker 1: who she had come across before when she was in school,
Speaker 1: but they met again through these political circles, and that
Speaker 1: was kind of where we left at. Diego was courting
Speaker 1: Frieda at her parents home known as Cossa Zul. Now
Speaker 1: the way we catched in the last episode, Diego was
Speaker 1: visiting Cosa Azul sort of under the pretense of critiquing
Speaker 1: Frieda's paintings a respected artists exactly the more well known
Speaker 1: artists helping the novice. But while it's true that Diego
Speaker 1: probably wanted an excuse to stop by her parents house,
Speaker 1: he also was just truly interested in Frieda's art. He
Speaker 1: later wrote, quote, it was obvious to me that this
Speaker 1: girl was an authentic artist, So he wasn't leading her
Speaker 1: on in that respect exactly. He wasn't just blowing smoke.
Speaker 1: That's the one thing that seems to ring true throughout
Speaker 1: their relationship. In fact, whatever happens between these two lovers,
Speaker 1: and we'll see that a lot happens between them, they
Speaker 1: remain really big supporters and admirers of each other's work,
Speaker 1: mutual fans, and as we also mentioned, friends on both
Speaker 1: sides had reservations about their pairing up together being romantically involved.
Speaker 1: Some of Frieda's friends saw Diego, who was twenty one
Speaker 1: years older than her, it's kind of a dirty old man.
Speaker 1: He'd been married twice before already, he was a notorious womanizer.
Speaker 1: They were afraid she was getting involved with the wrong
Speaker 1: kind of guy. And Frieda, though, wasn't exactly this demure
Speaker 1: young lady who being snatched out of her parents house
Speaker 1: that she left drinking and dancing, socializing, flirting. She had
Speaker 1: kind of a wicked sense of humor, and according to
Speaker 1: the PBS biography, ever, she really left gossip and dirty jokes.
Speaker 1: So you know, maybe it's not as strange of appairing
Speaker 1: as it seems initially, According to that Smithsonian article by
Speaker 1: Phillis Tukman that we mentioned in part one of this podcast,
Speaker 1: when Diego and Frieda decided to get married, her dad
Speaker 1: warned Diego that Frieda was, quote a devil, to which
Speaker 1: Diego responded, I know it. So this obviously didn't deter him, though,
Speaker 1: as the two were married on August one. Frida was
Speaker 1: twenty one at the time and Diego was forty two.
Speaker 1: Frieda was later known to have said, quote, I suffered
Speaker 1: too grave accidents in my life, one in which a
Speaker 1: street car knocked me down, and the other was Diego.
Speaker 1: And we'll kind of analyze that quote a little bit
Speaker 1: later on strange thing to say about your husband is.
Speaker 1: We wanted to mention it though, because we kind of
Speaker 1: alluded to it, I think at the last at the
Speaker 1: end of the last episode, so we needed to bring
Speaker 1: it up again. But her parents described it in kind
Speaker 1: of a funny way to their marriage. They described it
Speaker 1: as quote a marriage between an elephant and a dove
Speaker 1: because of Frieda and Diego's comical size difference. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: despite these superficial differences, Frieda and Diego did really share
Speaker 1: a lot of the same ideals. We already talked a
Speaker 1: little bit about Diego being part of the Makani Dad movement,
Speaker 1: in which he rejected Western European influences in his art
Speaker 1: in favor of all things considered authentically Mexican, and Frieda
Speaker 1: became a pretty devoted adherent of this movement too. She
Speaker 1: started wearing traditional Mexican costumes. That's probably what she's most
Speaker 1: famous for doing in that respect, including these long floor
Speaker 1: link skirts and dresses and tops and flamboyant color. She
Speaker 1: was somebody very focused on her look and her style
Speaker 1: and her clothes, and she also rejected conventional standards of beauty,
Speaker 1: which is why she didn't plug her eyebrows or her mustache.
Speaker 1: In fact, according to Stephanie Mensmer's article in The Washington
Speaker 1: Monthly which we mentioned last episode, she actually groomed them
Speaker 1: with these special tools and sometimes penciled them darker. So
Speaker 1: it was a point of pride, it was, and this
Speaker 1: facial hair famously shows up in her self portraits and
Speaker 1: it is kind of one of her trademarks in her art.
Speaker 1: Following their marriage, Diego and Frieda spent about a year
Speaker 1: in Cuernavaca, where Diego painted murals that the American Ambassador
Speaker 1: to Mexico had commissioned, and from the beginning Frieda took on.
Speaker 1: She took a lot of pride in taking care of
Speaker 1: Diego and in playing sort of the part of the
Speaker 1: devoted wife, but she wasn't playing apart. She really seemed
Speaker 1: to be into this. She would cook for him and
Speaker 1: even bathe him in. Diego was finally able to get
Speaker 1: a visa to go to the United States, which was
Speaker 1: something that he had wanted to do for a while,
Speaker 1: but by that point he had been expelled from the
Speaker 1: Communist Party, so that might have kind of helped his
Speaker 1: cause and getting that visa. But since Diego was expelled,
Speaker 1: Freda resigned from the party as well and beca that
Speaker 1: she was able to join him in traveling to the States,
Speaker 1: and they arrived there November. So they started out in
Speaker 1: San Francisco, where Diego created murals for the San Francisco
Speaker 1: Stock Exchange in the California School of Fine Arts, and
Speaker 1: meanwhile Kala, who was still pretty much of an unknown
Speaker 1: artist at this point painted portraits of friends, continued to
Speaker 1: paint portraits that reflected her life more like homelike pursuits,
Speaker 1: I guess, than what Diego was doing. We should note though,
Speaker 1: that much like her style of dress, these paintings were
Speaker 1: authentically Mexican. They were informed by nineteenth century portraiture, but
Speaker 1: they also combined aspects of Mexican pop culture and pre
Speaker 1: Columbian art in a way that really hadn't been done
Speaker 1: before at that point. They were tiny to kind of
Speaker 1: like Frieda, so very different in scale from the type
Speaker 1: of stuff that her husband was working out. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that's so fitting, isn't it that their preferred
Speaker 1: mode of art fits their own stature. It kind of
Speaker 1: But these paintings of hers were often painted on sheet
Speaker 1: metal too, instead of canvas, which is another point that
Speaker 1: I found interesting. And this was a style that was
Speaker 1: similar to Mexican street artists, who did small vote of
Speaker 1: paintings that were religious in nature. Well, I think it's
Speaker 1: cool too that. I mean, I didn't realize that many
Speaker 1: of her paintings were done in sheet metal either. Her
Speaker 1: images are very iconic, but I don't know how many
Speaker 1: I've actually seen in person where you could tell, oh,
Speaker 1: that's sheet metal, not campus, That's true. It's an entirely
Speaker 1: different thing to see art in person. But after San Francisco,
Speaker 1: Frieda and Diego moved on for a quick visit to
Speaker 1: New York City, where Diego had a show at the
Speaker 1: Museum of Modern Art, and after that they went on
Speaker 1: to Detroit, where Diego was commissioned to paint industrial theme
Speaker 1: murals in the garden court of the Detroit Institute of Art.
Speaker 1: And it's their time in Detroit that's considered a really
Speaker 1: significant time in Frieda's life and in her art especially.
Speaker 1: Really her art matured over the entire time they were
Speaker 1: in America. But it's those works that she painted after
Speaker 1: she had a miscare and Detroit that, although a bit disturbing,
Speaker 1: and their gruesomeness, those works, they're considered some of her
Speaker 1: most original and one piece, for example, she actually painted
Speaker 1: her miscarriage. It's a nude portrait of herself where she's
Speaker 1: lying on a blood stained bed and crying. She also
Speaker 1: did a painting called My Birth around this time, which
Speaker 1: depicts a partially covered woman's body with Colo's head coming
Speaker 1: out of the vagina, one of her more famous paintings,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people women especially connect with these
Speaker 1: paintings today because they seemed to embody female suffering. And
Speaker 1: it's assumed that that overwhelming influence on Frieda was her
Speaker 1: longing to have children. She had several miscarriages and at
Speaker 1: least one abortion during her marriage to Diego, but most
Speaker 1: attribute her inability to have kids to those injuries she
Speaker 1: sustained in the bus accident. But in her article, Mentor
Speaker 1: does point out that Frieda actually may have been more
Speaker 1: ambivalent about having kids than a lot of people assumely
Speaker 1: because in her letters she never really expressed as a
Speaker 1: strong desire to have her own kids, and her actions
Speaker 1: sometimes supported this theory. So one example, once when she
Speaker 1: was pregnant, she deliberately disobeyed doctor's orders and took driving
Speaker 1: lessons instead of staying in bed like she was supposed to.
Speaker 1: And she also might have thought kids would distract Diego
Speaker 1: from his work and possibly from her too. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're gonna see more as we go on. They have
Speaker 1: a very tumultuous relationship they do. After that sort of
Speaker 1: heroin time in Detroit, Diego and Frieda returned to New York,
Speaker 1: where Diego worked on a mural for Rockefeller Center. Diego
Speaker 1: was really enjoying his time in the States. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was getting all this great work to do, he
Speaker 1: had this major show, but Frieda became very homesick. Mentimer
Speaker 1: also points out something that might be a bit surprising
Speaker 1: to us fans of Frieda's art. Frieda really didn't like
Speaker 1: Americans or the United States at all. In fact, I
Speaker 1: think Mensimer used the term disdain when she was talking
Speaker 1: about Frieda's feelings for the United States. Basically, she like
Speaker 1: going to see Marx Brothers and Laurel and Hardy movies,
Speaker 1: and that was about it. I'm imagining a very sullen
Speaker 1: Frieda sitting in the theater by herself brooding. Freda once
Speaker 1: said quote, I find that Americans completely lack sensibility and
Speaker 1: good taste. They are boring, and they all have faces
Speaker 1: like unbaked rolls purn That's a real cutdown. But one
Speaker 1: of Frieda's most recognizable paintings is self portrait on the
Speaker 1: border line between Mexico and the United States, where she's
Speaker 1: standing between a pre Columbian ruin and native flowers on
Speaker 1: one side. It's all very beautiful, and then Ford Motor
Speaker 1: Company smoke stacks and skyscrapers on the other. And I mean,
Speaker 1: if you look at that painting, you can eavily see
Speaker 1: how this would have been inspired by her homesickness on
Speaker 1: the one hand, and kind of her disdain for Americans
Speaker 1: in the United States after they spent about three years
Speaker 1: in the US. Though free to finally got her wish.
Speaker 1: They returned to Mexico near the end of ninety three,
Speaker 1: but neither of them were exactly elated about this. They
Speaker 1: weren't happy when they homecoming exactly. That mural that Diego
Speaker 1: had painted on Rockfeller Center, for one thing, had created
Speaker 1: quite a bit of controversy because he had included flattering
Speaker 1: portrait of Lenin in it, and the owners of the
Speaker 1: portrait weren't happy with that at all, and they wanted
Speaker 1: Diego to paint Lennon out of it, but he refused,
Speaker 1: so they had the entire mural destroyed. A just a
Speaker 1: side note to that, Diego recreated the mural later for
Speaker 1: the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City, so he
Speaker 1: did sort of get it back later. But Frieda was
Speaker 1: also unhappy when they came home, partially because she felt
Speaker 1: like Diego blamed her for making him come back and
Speaker 1: for you know, a lot of the feelings that he
Speaker 1: had had upon their return. There were also some other
Speaker 1: issues going on with their relationship too, though, yeah, kind
Speaker 1: of ongoing issues, most of which revolved mainly around infidelity
Speaker 1: and as we mentioned before, where Diego was quite the
Speaker 1: womanizer and that didn't change a bit after he married Frieda,
Speaker 1: and that maybe one reason why she'd often visit him
Speaker 1: on the scaffolding while he was painting his murals, bringing
Speaker 1: him lunch, taken care of him, whatnot, because she was
Speaker 1: keeping an eye on him and his lovely models he
Speaker 1: was using, just sort of establishing her wifely presence there.
Speaker 1: And every time he'd take up with another woman, though,
Speaker 1: she would really kind of spiral into a depression. And
Speaker 1: it brings us back to Frieda's quote about how Diego
Speaker 1: was like another accident in her life, you know, comparable
Speaker 1: to her horrible bus accident, because while the street car
Speaker 1: incident had left her crippled physically, it's almost as if
Speaker 1: Diego had crippled her in some way too, some like
Speaker 1: an emotional way. And sometimes that's uh taken quite literally. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it wasn't literally in the sense that it
Speaker 1: wasn't all emotional. When he was with someone else, she
Speaker 1: usually become physically ill, to experiencing pain and sometimes even
Speaker 1: had mean to be hospitalized. Diego and Frieda moved into
Speaker 1: a new house in Mexico City, which featured two buildings
Speaker 1: connected by a narrow bridge. It was kind of a
Speaker 1: his and her sort of set up. His building was
Speaker 1: pink and hers was blue, and you know, they had
Speaker 1: plans for each to have studios and both. But she
Speaker 1: didn't really get to enjoy this home so much or
Speaker 1: paint much here because she was hospitalized a lot. And
Speaker 1: when Diego had an affair with her little sister, Christina,
Speaker 1: she actually moved out of the house into an apartment.
Speaker 1: After a few months, they did make up and she
Speaker 1: moved back in. But I can imagine that her focus
Speaker 1: on her work was probably pretty broken up to be
Speaker 1: kind of a permanently damaging incident. But Frieda wasn't completely
Speaker 1: the victim here either. She had a lot of affairs
Speaker 1: of her own, with both men and women, and one
Speaker 1: notable affair of hers was with Russian Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky,
Speaker 1: who was living in Eggbile for opposing the Stalinist regime,
Speaker 1: and Diego actually worked on Trotsky's behalf to have him
Speaker 1: admitted into Mexico, and Trotsky and his family started living
Speaker 1: at Frieda's childhood home, Kassa azul and Um. Not too
Speaker 1: long after that, Freedom and Trotsky became lover. She even
Speaker 1: painted him a portrait of herself as a gift, but
Speaker 1: their affear didn't really laugh that long, and after Trotsky
Speaker 1: was eventually assassinated, Frieda even called him a coward, claimed
Speaker 1: he'd stolen from her while living at Kassa Zul, something
Speaker 1: that probably wasn't true. Um. And then in that article
Speaker 1: we keep mentioning by Mensumer, she says Frieda turned on
Speaker 1: Trotsky like this because she had become a devout Stalinist
Speaker 1: in the meantime and remained so pretty much the rest
Speaker 1: of her life. One of her last paintings was called
Speaker 1: Stalin and I so I guess at this point she
Speaker 1: preferred Stalin over Trotsky and made that quite clear. After
Speaker 1: her affair with Trotsky, things began to change with Frieda
Speaker 1: as far as her art was concerned, though. The French
Speaker 1: writer Andre Breton, who's considered the father of surrealism, came
Speaker 1: to Mexico and really became enamored with Freeda's work. He
Speaker 1: called her work surrealist, which, as art, basically meant that
Speaker 1: it produced fantastic imagery or effects by using these unnatural
Speaker 1: or unexpected juxtaposition. Dolly, I mean, he's kind of the
Speaker 1: classic example exactly. But Frieda never really thought of herself
Speaker 1: this way. She wrote that she never knew that she
Speaker 1: was a surrealist quote until Andre Breton came to Mexico
Speaker 1: and told me that I was one. She also wrote, really,
Speaker 1: I do not know whether my paintings are surrealist or not,
Speaker 1: but I do know that they are the frankest expression
Speaker 1: of myself. Since my subjects have always been my sensations,
Speaker 1: my states of mind, and the profound reactions that life
Speaker 1: has been producing in me, I have frequently objectified all
Speaker 1: this and figures of myself, which were the most sincere
Speaker 1: and real thing that I could do in order to
Speaker 1: express what I felt inside and outside of myself. Interesting
Speaker 1: to note too, Diego didn't agree with the surrealist assessment either.
Speaker 1: He believed that Frieda's work was very much realist, regardless
Speaker 1: what they thought. Though. Britain arranged for Frieda to show
Speaker 1: her work in New York in ninety eight. This was
Speaker 1: a huge deal. It was her first one person show
Speaker 1: held at the Julian Levy Gallery, which was one of
Speaker 1: the first American venues to promote surrealist arts. So I
Speaker 1: mean it was certainly being marketed as surrealist, even if
Speaker 1: she was unsure. People like Georgia O'Keefe were in attendance
Speaker 1: for the opening, and the show was widely considered to
Speaker 1: be a huge success, I mean enough of a success
Speaker 1: for Frieda to grace the cover of Vogue shortly thereafter,
Speaker 1: and after her success in New York free to travel
Speaker 1: to France, where eventually she got a show as well,
Speaker 1: and the Louve ended up buying one of her self portraits,
Speaker 1: and it was the first work by twentieth century Mexican
Speaker 1: artists to enter the Louver's collections. Pablo Picasso, and admire
Speaker 1: of her work, gave Frieda a pair of ear rings
Speaker 1: around this time too, which I feel is very exciting
Speaker 1: to get jewelry from public Picasso. I would have liked
Speaker 1: one of his china's. That would be my my requested
Speaker 1: gift from Pablo Coffee if I got a fee in that.
Speaker 1: I don't know. You're the one who always says, what
Speaker 1: are you going to do with china? Anyway, that's true,
Speaker 1: I would use my pcaffee china as you should. Coming
Speaker 1: home from this was kind of a letdown though for Frieda.
Speaker 1: She found Diego in the midst of yet another affair.
Speaker 1: By the end of nine nine they finally decided to
Speaker 1: get a divorce, and after the split, freed to kind
Speaker 1: of threw herself into her art since people had started
Speaker 1: to take notice of her work. Finally, she hoped that
Speaker 1: it would be her ticket to financial independence. No longer
Speaker 1: dependent on her family, no longer dependent on Diego, she thought,
Speaker 1: maybe this will be my way to be able to
Speaker 1: do whatever I want to exactly. So Frieda did a
Speaker 1: lot of self portraits around this time, where she was
Speaker 1: surrounded by her beloved pets, including monkeys, cats, and parents.
Speaker 1: One distinctive portrait she also did around the time of
Speaker 1: her divorce was the Two Frieda's and as the name suggests,
Speaker 1: it's actually a double self portrait. There are two of
Speaker 1: her in this painting. One is wearing a European outfit
Speaker 1: that's torn open to reveal a broken heart, and the
Speaker 1: other is wearing Mexican costume, and they're joined together by
Speaker 1: an artery that's running from one heart to the other.
Speaker 1: So we can see kind of a little influence from
Speaker 1: her medical her pre medical studies here too, I think,
Speaker 1: but she later said that this was inspired by the
Speaker 1: memory of an imaginary childhood friend. However, we know that
Speaker 1: Diego was also born a twin, so there might have
Speaker 1: been some influence from that as well things that play there. Perhaps,
Speaker 1: so Diego and Frieda really didn't stay apart for very long.
Speaker 1: A doctor friend of theirs in San Francisco basically told
Speaker 1: Frieda that she should make up with Diego, and according
Speaker 1: to Tukman's article, he wrote to her saying, quote, Diego
Speaker 1: loves you very much, and you love him. It is
Speaker 1: also the case, and you know it better than I
Speaker 1: that besides you, he has two great loves, one painting,
Speaker 1: two women. In general, he has never been, nor ever
Speaker 1: will be monogamous, so that sounds kind of not encouraging.
Speaker 1: But ultimately Frieda decided to accept Diego for who he was,
Speaker 1: warts and all, and they remarried in December of ninety
Speaker 1: but they continued to have a very volatile relationship. Both
Speaker 1: of them kept having affairs, but Freeda also continued to
Speaker 1: focus on her work. She even took on a group
Speaker 1: of students known as Los Frieda's, and she continued to
Speaker 1: do the things that made her happy, like cooking and
Speaker 1: socializing with friends. As the years went by, though, Frida's
Speaker 1: health continued to deteriorate pretty much through the last decade
Speaker 1: of her life, she had had several operations on her
Speaker 1: back and her leg during this time. All told, really
Speaker 1: we should mention since her accident, since her teen years,
Speaker 1: she had had more than thirty operations total nine three.
Speaker 1: Her right leg had to be amputated below the knee.
Speaker 1: And while in during these health problems, she became addicted
Speaker 1: to alcohol and pain killers, and that just kind of
Speaker 1: compounded the problem and it showed in her work. By
Speaker 1: ninety three, Menstumer writes that Frieda could barely pick up
Speaker 1: a paintbrush. Her hands were so shaky, and that's why
Speaker 1: a lot of her late work is considered subpar um
Speaker 1: when you compare it to her other earlier pieces. Frida did, however,
Speaker 1: have kind of a last her Raw One More One
Speaker 1: Person show in nineteen fifty three. It was her first
Speaker 1: solo exhibition in Mexico, the only one held in her
Speaker 1: native country during her lifetime, something I consider kind of remarkable.
Speaker 1: She was bedridden, though, but she insisted on attending this
Speaker 1: opening night, you know, her big event. So they had
Speaker 1: to get her there in an ambulance, and then she
Speaker 1: was carried to a canopy bed which had been decorated
Speaker 1: with photos and things, and that's the perch from which
Speaker 1: she got to enjoy her night. I mean, you can
Speaker 1: imagine her almost holding court there during her her big
Speaker 1: gala event. But a local critic wrote of the exhibition quote,
Speaker 1: it is impossible to separate the life and work of
Speaker 1: this extraordinary person. Her paintings are her biography. She died
Speaker 1: the next year, in nineteen fifty four, at the age
Speaker 1: of forty seven, and while the cause of death was
Speaker 1: officially pulmonary embolism, many do suggest or suspect that she
Speaker 1: committed suicide. Just four days before her death, she had
Speaker 1: been out fighting now, I mean, she kind of had
Speaker 1: a spark to the end. It themed she had attended
Speaker 1: a protest in a wheelchair with Diego. They were protesting
Speaker 1: the overthrow of the Guatemalan president by the CIA. After
Speaker 1: her death, Frieda's work went unnoticed for several decades until
Speaker 1: the freedom mania that we mentioned in the first part
Speaker 1: of this podcast kicked off in the early nineties. Now,
Speaker 1: her painting self for millions of dollars, putting her at
Speaker 1: least as far as dollar figures are concerned, in the
Speaker 1: same league as the likes of Picasso and Warhol, Madonna
Speaker 1: for instance, as a huge collector of freed To Callo's work,
Speaker 1: she owns that painting that we mentioned earlier called My Birth,
Speaker 1: and she said that she quote identifies with Frieda's pain
Speaker 1: and her sadness. We were speculated a little bit before
Speaker 1: recording about like I wonder where Madonna keeps it? Even
Speaker 1: like where is it on display? I know, I want
Speaker 1: to do a little more research on that, and I
Speaker 1: wonder what else she owns. I'm sure she didn't own
Speaker 1: just one. You can't have just one. Will be googling
Speaker 1: Madonna's art collection later. With that kind of cachet, you
Speaker 1: can see why the art world would be in an
Speaker 1: uproar about a previously unknown trove of Frieda's artwork coming
Speaker 1: to light, like the one that we mentioned in the
Speaker 1: intro to Part one. So we know that the art
Speaker 1: experts generally think this troe that we mentioned as a fake,
Speaker 1: but some others think otherwise. Diego Rivera's granddaughter, for instance,
Speaker 1: attested to the works authenticity before her death in two
Speaker 1: thousand seven, and a couple of former Los Frida's students
Speaker 1: are also convinced. Regardless the trust that controls Collas copyright.
Speaker 1: As we mentioned, did file a criminal complaint, and they
Speaker 1: asked the Mexican government to investigate these fines. So after
Speaker 1: that last June, a Mexican court ruled that opponents have
Speaker 1: failed to prove their claim that the collection is focused.
Speaker 1: But they didn't roll on the collections often ticity. They
Speaker 1: only said that the trust had failed to prove that
Speaker 1: it was counterfeit. Still, though, the antique dealers who possessed
Speaker 1: the trope are considering this pretty much a victory. They've
Speaker 1: filed for ownership papers for the material, and at the
Speaker 1: time the story broke, they were considering options for an exhibition.
Speaker 1: So it's gonna be interesting to see how this plays out.
Speaker 1: I love when we close a podcast on an open story.
Speaker 1: It shows you kind of history is ongoing exactly, and
Speaker 1: it's something that might come up later in a podcast.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe in our Historical Finds round up for
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve to bring up this trove again if
Speaker 1: something happens with it, you know, and it just opens
Speaker 1: up possibilities for listeners to down the road. I think.
Speaker 1: I know, we know you guys watched the news very
Speaker 1: closely for us, so we'll all be looking out for
Speaker 1: this one. Well. I think putting an open ended mystery
Speaker 1: out there is a good way just to finish off
Speaker 1: and transition into kind of an artsy related listener mail
Speaker 1: as well. This isn't an email for once. It's a
Speaker 1: letter that was sent to me actually with a package
Speaker 1: by listener Robert, and it was just a really cool
Speaker 1: thing to receive. If you listen to the podcast a lot,
Speaker 1: you may remember we did one on John d back
Speaker 1: in the fall late fall, and um we mentioned Harry Potter,
Speaker 1: and I mentioned that my niece was reading Harry Potter,
Speaker 1: and um had suggested to me to read it as well.
Speaker 1: More than suggested. She kind of shoved a book in
Speaker 1: my hand and was like, read this. So Robert wrote
Speaker 1: to us and sent us wand pretty cool looking, right.
Speaker 1: Have you tried any spells or has your niece tried any?
Speaker 1: I know it was ultimately destined for her. Yes, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm going to have to explore that and
Speaker 1: find out if any of her, if her brother or
Speaker 1: sister has been turned into a toad or something. But
Speaker 1: I wanted to read what Robert wrote because it's really cool.
Speaker 1: He said, jar to Blina and closed as a gift
Speaker 1: for you to read gift to your Harry Potter reading niece.
Speaker 1: When my daughter's nieces and nephews were busy with the
Speaker 1: Harry Potter series, I made several of these wands for
Speaker 1: them to play with. Of course, I made more than
Speaker 1: I needed so they could each have a variety from
Speaker 1: which to choose, So afterward I ended up with some extras.
Speaker 1: So I guess that's what I ended up with. And
Speaker 1: when you mentioned that you were reading the books along
Speaker 1: with your niece, I thought of sending you one to
Speaker 1: help steal your status as a cool ant. And this
Speaker 1: particular wand is made of mahogany and padwalk. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I said that correctly or not. With an
Speaker 1: agged at the base of the handle, the end of
Speaker 1: the handle unscrews to reveal a small compartment for a phoenix, feathers,
Speaker 1: or other supplemental magical items. I hope she enjoys it,
Speaker 1: so thank you so much, Robert. I know that my
Speaker 1: niece and probably my other niece and my nephew will
Speaker 1: enjoy this for years to come. And it was just
Speaker 1: so cool to see. I cannot believe that he made
Speaker 1: this with his own hands. It's pretty amazing and I
Speaker 1: guess we'll have to just be searching. Keep on the
Speaker 1: lookout for Phoenix Brothers too, or I don't know, dragon
Speaker 1: heart string something something along something to stuff in there. Um.
Speaker 1: If you have you don't have to send us a gift,
Speaker 1: but if you have any letters to send us, any
Speaker 1: comments about podcasts, or notes about interesting crafts that you
Speaker 1: do like listener Robert, or if you just want to
Speaker 1: send us a suggestion for a future podcast, please write
Speaker 1: to us where at History podcast at Discovery dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also find us on Facebook and we're on Twitter.
Speaker 1: In this history and if you want to learn a
Speaker 1: little bit more about art history related topics. We mentioned
Speaker 1: this last time that we have a lot of articles
Speaker 1: on famous artists, but we also have articles on famous
Speaker 1: art movements, including for realism. You can look that one
Speaker 1: up by searching for how Surrealism works on our homepage
Speaker 1: at www dot how Stuff Works dot com. Be sure
Speaker 1: to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Speaker 1: Join House to Work staff as we explore the most
Speaker 1: promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The House of Works
Speaker 1: iPhone up hows a ride. Download it today on iTunes.
Speaker 1: It got in