Autograph letter signed (‘Frida’) to Julien [Levy], Coyoacán, 6 April 1941 (pen & ink on...

In the grips of ill-health, increasingly confined to her home in Mexico, Frida Kahlo writes in beseeching tone to Julien Levy, the New York art dealer, gallerist, and champion of the Surrealists, who had been responsible for her first solo show, held in the city in 1938. Kahlo opens in poignant form – ‘Did you forget all about me? Since the remarriage I haven’t heard a word from you. What are you doing?’ – before asking after Muriel and Ella [Levy’s wife and daughter], wondering whether he will visit Mexico and how his book progresses. She continues ‘Do you like me less and less? […] Write to me, will you kid?’. Kahlo had remarried Diego Rivera in December 1940 and the reconciled couple lived together in Frida’s childhood home in Mexico, La Casa Azul, in greater harmony than before. Yet she continued to be plagued by health issues, which kept her housebound at the same time her paintings were finally garnering recognition in America.