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<\/p>\nMEXICO CITY\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Many soccer aficionados in town for the World Cup took time out for a change-of-pace culture fix: a visit to an emblematic collection of 20th century Mexican art, featuring signature works of Frida Kahlo, the taboo-breaking painter turned global feminist icon. <\/p>\n
\u201cFabulous,\u201d concluded \u00c1lvaro Mu\u00f1oz, 41 a university professor from Colombia, after viewing the paintings of Kahlo and others. But Mu\u00f1oz was shocked to learn that many Mexicans fear that the private collection\u2019s future in Mexico may be in doubt. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe paintings are the patrimony of all Mexicans,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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Frida Kahlo\u2019s self-portrait \u201cThe Broken Column\u201d appears in the Dolores Olmedo Museum, one of two museums in Mexico City showcasing works by Kahlo. <\/p>\n
(Marco Ugarte \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n
The works are scheduled to go on display in Europe, and the trove\u2019s impending departure has ignited one of Mexico\u2019s most heated cultural controversies in recent memory. <\/p>\n
Hundreds of intellectuals and others have signed letters and online petitions expressing fears of a disastrous denouement: the collection\u2019s prolonged \u2014 and possible permanent \u2014 absence from Mexico.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese works deserve to be preserved forever for the people of Mexico,\u201d said Francisco Berzunza, an art historian.<\/p>\n
The 68 works \u2014 including 10 oil paintings by Kahlo \u2014 went on display at the Museum of Modern Art in February, the first public showing in Mexico in almost two decades. The exhibit, reflecting an especially vibrant period in Mexican history, has drawn record crowds, exceeding 300,000.<\/p>\n
The show is scheduled to end Sunday and hit the road for a European tour, beginning with a star turn in the September opening of the glitzy new Faro Santander museum in Spain, Mexico\u2019s onetime colonial overlord<\/a>.<\/p>\n The exhibit showcases other Mexican masters, including Kahlo\u2019s husband, Diego Rivera, but the big draw has been Kahlo, whose oeuvre has become a touchstone of feminist and Latin American iconography. <\/p>\n In life she may have played second fiddle to the flamboyant Rivera, but time has reversed the artistic hierarchy. Last year, one of Kahlo\u2019s self-portraits sold at auction in New York for $55 million \u2014 a record for a woman and a Latin American artist.<\/p>\n Kahlo\u2019s \u201cSelf-Portrait With Necklace\u201d was one of her many self-portraits.<\/p>\n (Mexico\u2019s National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature)<\/p>\n Berzunza is the lead plaintiff in a federal lawsuit filed this month against the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature, which reviews export licenses for items protected under cultural heritage statutes. Dozens of the collection\u2019s works \u2014 including all the paintings by Kahlo and Rivera \u2014 bear the legal imprimatur of \u201cartistic monument,\u201d which restricts sales and export.<\/p>\n The lawsuit alleges that authorities ignored statutory safeguards meant to ensure the collection\u2019s return to Mexico, and seeks an injunction barring the works from leaving the country.<\/p>\n President Claudia Sheinbaum has dismissed as fake news any notion that Mexico is in jeopardy of losing the collection.<\/p>\n \u201cThe collection will visit various countries of the world for two years and will come back, as it says in the law,\u201d Sheinbaum told reporters in April, blaming political adversaries for the contretemps. \u201cIt has to return.\u201d<\/p>\n These works deserve to be preserved forever for the people of Mexico.<\/p>\n \u2014 Francisco Berzunza, art historian<\/p>\n The foundation overseeing the traveling exhibition has also said the collection \u201cwould return to Mexico at the end of the period of temporary export.\u201d <\/p>\n Activists say they applaud foreign exhibitions of heritage treasures \u2014 as long as laws guaranteeing their return are followed. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m the last one to complain about a collection traveling; it presents [Mexico\u2019s] best face\u201d to the world, said Adriana Malvido, a cultural columnist. \u201cBut everything must be done under a state of legality and order and transparency. That has not been the case here.\u201d<\/p>\n In the 1930s and 1940s, postrevolutionary Mexico emerged as both an incubator of modern art and haven for European refugees, political exiles and other expats. Many developed a deep affection for the country and its artistic innovations, while seizing on business opportunities.<\/p>\n Among the emigre newcomers were Jacques Gelman and Natasha Zahalka.<\/p>\n Gelman, a native of St. Petersburg, Russia, fled the Bolsheviks in the 1920s and moved to Berlin, where he launched a career in the fast-developing movie industry, according to a Metropolitan Museum of Art research paper.<\/a> He later relocated to Paris and became a film producer and distributor, before decamping to Mexico in 1938, just before the outbreak of World War II. <\/p>\n In Mexico, Gelman met Zahalka, a native of Bohemia (part of the current-day Czech Republic ) who was reared in a Catholic convent and attended schools in Vienna and Switzerland. In 1941, the cosmopolitan soulmates wed in Mexico City. <\/p>\n Kahlo\u2019s \u201cDiego on My Mind\u201d features a miniature portrait of her husband and fellow artist, Diego Rivera. <\/p>\n (Mexico\u2019s National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature)<\/p>\n Gelman reached mogul status as a producer during the so-called Golden Age of Mexican cinema. His cash cow: Mario Moreno, better known as Cantinflas, the improvisational comic genius sometimes called the \u201cMexican Charlie Chaplin.\u201d<\/p>\n The Gelmans fraternized with Mexico\u2019s bohemian avant-garde and hosted soirees at opulent residences in Mexico and New York. The couple commissioned Kahlo and Rivera to paint portraits of Natasha. The Gelmans also acquired paintings by Jos\u00e9 Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros and Rufino Tamayo, among other masters.<\/p>\n According to reports, five Kahlo paintings hung in Natasha\u2019s bedroom.<\/p>\n Kahlo\u2019s \u201cThe Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), Myself, Diego and Se\u00f1or X\u00f3lotl\u201d combines images of herself, her husband and an Aztec god.<\/p>\n (Heritage Images via Getty Images)<\/p>\n Since Kahlo became a posthumous sensation, her works have attracted deep-pocket collectors, among them Madonna. The pop star\u2019s inventory reportedly includes five Kahlo paintings.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784077817_451_.jpeg\")
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