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Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Page created on March 2, 2018 / Page updated on October 6, 2026
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Introduction

A young woman meets the viewer's eyes from the centre of Portrait of Arija Muray. Her blue-striped dress stands out against a closely marked, russet-coloured ground, while the face is framed by dark hair gathered back from a central parting. An independently captioned photograph of the painting identifies the sitter as Arija Muray and places the work at the Museo Frida Kahlo; a description of the museum's virtual tour also lists a portrait under her name. [1] [2]

Arija was the daughter of photographer Nickolas Muray, a close friend of Kahlo. She visited Mexico with her father in 1941 and was photographed with the painter in Coyoacán. After Arija died that September, Muray asked Kahlo to make her portrait. Sources disagree, however, about whether Kahlo began the picture he requested, and no accessible object record establishes that the surviving image is that particular commission. [3] [4] [5]

At a Glance

  • Work: Retrato de Arija Muray (Portrait of Arija Muray), an image independently identified under that title. [1]
  • Sitter: Arija Muray, daughter of the photographer Nickolas Muray. [3] [4]
  • Date: 1941 in an Album Archivo image caption; the precise execution date is unconfirmed. [1]
  • Museum connection: Named in a 2023 description of the Museo Frida Kahlo's virtual Room 1; current display is unknown. [2]
  • Commission: Muray requested a portrait after Arija's death. Accounts differ over whether Kahlo began it. [3] [5]

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Looking at the Portrait
  3. Arija’s 1941 Visit
  4. The Portrait Muray Asked For
  5. A Likeness with an Open History
  6. Related Reading

Looking at the Portrait

Arija appears from the chest upward, facing outward rather than turning towards an activity or another person. Her dark eyebrows and eyes give the face a steady emphasis, and the small red mouth adds a concentrated note of colour. Hair drawn back at the crown curls beside the face, making its pale shape clearer against the darker surrounding passages. [1]

The dress broadens at the shoulders and opens into a squared neckline. Its alternating dark and lighter blue bands run vertically down the front, giving the otherwise still pose a strong pattern. The background is equally active: short angled marks cross and overlap in brown, ochre and reddish tones rather than forming a smooth field. [1]

These two patterns behave differently. The stripes establish a clear downward rhythm through the clothing, while the small strokes behind Arija move in several directions. The busy ground seems to press close to her outline, so that her direct gaze becomes a point of calm amid the surrounding marks. A narrow reddish band at the lower edge closes the image without supplying a fully described room. [1]

The available reproductions show differences in how completely passages of face, clothing and background appear worked. That is worth noticing, particularly given the documentary accounts of an unfinished request. Yet a photograph cannot disclose the original surface's exact condition, the order in which Kahlo painted its parts or why work may have stopped. Nor does the ground itself justify identifying a specific fabric, foliage or hidden symbol. [1] [3]

Watch: Frida Kahlo

Five perspectives to view here alongside the article.

Frida Kahlo’s The Two Fridas: Great Art Explained

Great Art Explained

A focused visual introduction to the painting and its context.

Arija’s 1941 Visit

Hilda Trujillo, then director of the Casa Azul, told La Jornada in 2019 that Arija had hoped to come to Mexico in 1940 to learn in Kahlo and Diego Rivera's studio. That trip was cancelled, but according to Trujillo, Nickolas and Arija Muray visited in August 1941. Muray made photographs of Arija with Kahlo, Rivera and their circle at the Casa Azul. [3]

Museum photography records give this account a visible counterpart. The Harry Ransom Center catalogues Muray's Frida Kahlo with Arija Muray, in Coyoacán as a 1941 image, while a Rockwell Museum exhibition presented another print with the same two people and place in its caption. The George Eastman Museum also lists a 1941 San Ángel group photograph naming Arija alongside Kahlo, Rivera and Muray. [4] [6] [7]

The photographs form more than one isolated memento. In a study of Kahlo's photographic self-presentation, Nieves Limón Serrano identified fifteen known images from a 1941 session at San Ángel and the Casa Azul, including pictures with Arija and other friends. Limón Serrano also cautioned that a few variant camera views may have been made by someone other than Muray. [10]

Those photographs establish that Arija and Kahlo spent time together; they do not establish when Kahlo began the painted portrait. A photograph of the two women together is also not necessarily the likeness Muray later sent to Kahlo, or the image on which the painting was based. The distinction matters because the story of the painting is often compressed into a single sequence that the surviving public records do not fully document. [3] [4]

Portrait of Arija Muray in Kahlo’s career

Timeline source: Museo Frida Kahlo chronology [11].

The Portrait Muray Asked For

Arija died on 19 September 1941, aged nineteen. That date appears in a Muray exhibition chronology and in Gannit Ankori's later account, while a contemporary fencing notice records her death in September. The available sources establish the loss without requiring the painting to be read as a direct expression of Kahlo's own grief. [5] [8] [9]

According to Trujillo's account of the Casa Azul archives, Muray sent Kahlo a photograph and asked her to paint Arija after her death. Trujillo said Kahlo never completed the requested portrait or sent it to him. In a 2025 interview, Kahlo scholar Ankori likewise described Muray sending photographs and making repeated requests, but said Kahlo never painted the portrait. [3] [5]

Those statements agree that Muray's request did not yield a finished picture delivered to him. They do not agree about whether Kahlo started it. A named portrait image survives in reproduction and has appeared in accounts of the Casa Azul's collection, but the sources consulted do not connect that exact image to Muray's posthumous request by accession number, dated correspondence or a catalogue entry. It would be equally premature to declare that the two writers were referring to different pictures or that “never painted” simply meant “never finished.” [1] [2] [3] [5]

The Album Archivo caption dates the pictured portrait 1941, which would place it in the year of Arija's visit and death. It also gives a medium and support, but an original museum technical record has not been available to verify those details or the date. The painting can therefore be discussed in its documented 1941 human context without claiming a precise month, a confirmed material specification or a settled account of its making. [1] [3]

A Likeness with an Open History

The portrait's direct gaze and patterned setting make Arija present as more than an episode in her father's story. Kahlo gives her a distinct pictorial presence, with the face held steady between the rhythm of the striped dress and the restless background. The contrast is visible in the reproduced image even when the original work itself is not shown here. [1]

What happened between the 1941 visit, Muray's later request and the named portrait remains partly open. The museum-linked account of an unfinished picture and Ankori's account of an unpainted request deserve to be read beside the surviving image, not smoothed into a certainty neither provides. That careful distinction leaves room for both the portrait's visual force and the limits of its documented history. [1] [2] [3] [5]

Frida Kahlo's portraits of other people places named sitters within her broader practice. Portrait of Marta Patricia Procel is a separate work with a different sitter and source history.

Discussion

Use the cited evidence and your own close looking to explain your view. The prompts below are starting points, not fixed interpretations.

Reader Insights

Close Looking

How do the striped dress and closely marked ground direct attention towards Arija's face?

Context

What do the 1941 photographs establish about Arija's visit, and what can they not tell us about the painting?

Open Question

How do Trujillo's and Ankori's accounts differ on Muray's requested portrait?

Join the Conversation

Which reading best fits the evidence, and where does uncertainty remain?

References

  1. Album Archivo/SuperStock, rights-managed image 4409-17264181, captioned Retrato de Arija Muray, with a 1941 date and Museo Frida Kahlo identification. The caption is not an original museum technical card. View source text.
  2. Valeria Caroline Cruz Nascimento, university study of the Museo Frida Kahlo's virtual tour, PDF p. 28, description of Room 1 naming Retrato de Arija Muray. The description records a historical virtual display, not present gallery status. View source text.
  3. Mónica Mateos-Vega, interview with Casa Azul director Hilda Trujillo, La Jornada, 5 April 2019, p. 3, paragraphs on 1940 plans, August 1941 visit and Muray's request following Arija's death. View source text.
  4. Harry Ransom Center, Photography Collections Database, Nickolas Muray, Frida Kahlo with Arija Muray, in Coyoacán, dated 1941, accession 2020:0007:0029. View source text.
  5. Tiffany Dunk, interview with Gannit Ankori, The Australian Women's Weekly, 4 March 2025, Arija and posthumous portrait request passages. Ankori's account differs from Trujillo's on whether painting began. View source text.
  6. The Rockwell Museum, Frida Kahlo: Through the Lens of Nickolas Muray, exhibition page and caption for Frida with Arija, Coyoacán 1941, 2022–23. View source text.
  7. George Eastman Museum, Nickolas Muray collection, 1941 San Ángel group photograph, accession 2021.0033.0022. View source text.
  8. Nickolas Muray exhibition catalogue, Nickolas Muray Photo Archives, PDF p. 101, chronology entry for 19 September 1941. View source text.
  9. The Riposte, December 1941, PDF p. 16, contemporary notice of Arija Muray's death in September at nineteen. View source text.
  10. Nieves Limón Serrano, Estrategias de autorrepresentación fotográfica: El caso de Frida Kahlo, doctoral thesis, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 2014, PDF pp. 273–274 (printed pp. 277–278), discussion of the 1941 photographic session and attribution caution. View source text.
  11. Museo Frida Kahlo's chronology supplies dates for comparison works. The 1941 marker for Portrait of Arija Muray is an attribution in Album Archivo's image caption (reference 1), not a date verified from a museum object record; it does not settle when or whether the separately requested memorial portrait was begun. View source text.