My Dress Hangs There, 1933 by Frida Kahlo

After more than three years of staying in America, Frida started wanting to go back to Mexico desperately. But her husband, Diego Rivera, was enjoying the fame and popularity he got from this country and didn't want to go back. This painting is the result of this conflict. Frida Kahlo was trying to depict the superficiality of American capitalism. This painting is filled with the icons of the modern industrial society of the United States but implied that society is decaying and the fundamental human values are destructed. In contrast to this painting, her husband Diego Rivera was working on a mural in the Rockefeller Center to prove his approval of the industrial progress in America.

Not like her other paintings with her face always shows up, this painting is missing the focal point of Frida Kahlo. She only draws her dresses hanging there empty and alone with the chaos in the background. It seems she was saying "I may be in America but only my dress hangs there my life is in Mexico."

Frida began this painting while still in New York and completed it after she and Diego came back to Mexico. She marked this painting on the back in chalk and included the engraving: "I painted this in New York when Diego was painting the mural in Rockefeller Center".

The painting was given to Frida's trusted medicinal consultant Dr. Leo Eloesser of San Francisco. At the point when Dr. Eloesser passed on in 1976, he willed the painting to his long time friend Joyce Campbell. In 1993, Campbell sold the painting only before there was a booming market for Kahlo's works.