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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

In 1952, Frida Kahlo painted a long, crowded still life for Samuel Fastlicht, the dentist whose name also appears on a different painting she made the previous year. Broad cut squash, smaller fruits and a little green pennant turn this second work into an arrangement that is both lavish and addressed to a particular person. [1] [2] Its painted dedication names Fastlicht, Puebla and 1952, but does not tell us whether the picture was a gift, payment for treatment or a separate purchase. [2]

The distinction between the two paintings is essential to looking at either one. Kahlo's 1951 Naturaleza muerta (Soy de Samuel Fastlicht) has a blue background and a ceramic dog among its fruit; the 1952 Puebla work is wider and has a different inscription and grouping of produce. [1] [2] [3] They share a recipient, not an object identity.

At a Glance

  • Artist and work: Frida Kahlo, Naturaleza muerta dedicada a Samuel Fastlicht, also catalogued as Naturaleza muerta con calabazas; Still Life Dedicated to Samuel Fastlicht in English. [1]
  • Date and place: 1952, Puebla, as given in the published transcription of its painted dedication. No exact day of making has been established. [2]
  • Material and size: Museo Roca catalogues oil on canvas mounted on wood, 25.8 × 44 cm; a separate 2005 account abbreviates this to oil on wood, 26 × 44 cm. [1] [2]
  • Recipient and transfer: The inscription addresses Samuel Fastlicht. Published accounts differ over whether the two still lifes fulfilled a dental arrangement or were separately purchased. [1] [2]
  • Present location: Historical Fastlicht-family collection credits do not establish a current owner or public display. [1] [2]

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Two Fastlicht Still Lifes
  3. Looking Across the Picture
  4. A Dedication Is Not a Receipt
  5. Food, Place and Personal Address
  6. Related Reading

Two Fastlicht Still Lifes

The clearest way to identify this picture is to compare two illustrated entries in Ivanna Margarucci's Museo Roca catalogue. Entry 185 is the 1951 painting: a nearly square composition, blue behind the fruit, with a small dog figure and a banner beginning “Soy de Samuel Fastlicht.” Entry 192 is the longer 1952 composition, with two large cut orange forms, a diagonal yellow-orange object and a green pennant. [1] [3]

José Sanfilippo, writing about Kahlo and Fastlicht in a dental-history journal, independently describes a second still life made in Puebla in 1952. He transcribes a dedication beginning “Para Samuel Fastlicht pintó con todo amor” and ending with Kahlo's name, Puebla and the year. [2] The English phrase “painted with all my love,” sometimes used as a title, comes from that dedication; it should not replace the catalogue's Spanish title or make the work indistinguishable from the 1951 “Soy de” painting.

These published records agree on the central identity, but they differ slightly in material description and measurement. Museo Roca specifies canvas mounted on wood, 25.8 × 44 cm; Sanfilippo says oil on wood, 26 × 44 cm. [1] [2] The latter may be an abbreviated account of a mounted canvas, but only a technical examination could establish the support's actual construction.

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.

Still Life Dedicated to Samuel Fastlicht in Kahlo’s career

Timeline source: Museo Frida Kahlo chronology [7].

Looking Across the Picture

The elongated format allows Kahlo to compress a surprising number of forms into a shallow field. Two broad orange cut surfaces command the upper part, while paler rounds and smaller pieces gather below; a long yellow-orange form sweeps diagonally toward the lower left. [1] [3] A dark mottled round form near the little green pennant interrupts the warmer colours, and the lettering becomes a small but consequential part of the arrangement.

Sanfilippo names two halves of a large squash, two grapefruits, an orange, three plátanos manzano and a chilacayote that carries the pennant. [2] His inventory is more specific than a small reproduction can independently verify. The observed cut surfaces and overlapping fruits can be described directly; attaching every crop name to an exact painted shape requires the published account rather than botanical certainty from the image. [3]

The open forms invite interpretations of growth, ripeness and the body, but their presence is not an artist-supplied code. A University of La Laguna study suggests a womb-like association for the opened squash and reads some bananas as decaying. [4] That is a possible interpretation, not a documented statement of Kahlo's intention; moreover, the study's accompanying illustration and caption show the 1951 dog-figurine painting while its prose discusses the 1952 Puebla one. Its visual analysis cannot securely be transferred to this work. [3] [4]

Shape and address work together more firmly than any single allegory. The squash halves draw the eye across the broad surface, smaller fruit checks that movement, and the pennant brings the eye back to the person named in the picture. [1] [2] [3] The resulting still life is at once a study of abundance and a personal dedication; neither quality cancels the other.

A Dedication Is Not a Receipt

Samuel Fastlicht treated Kahlo as a dentist, and their relationship extended beyond a single appointment. Sanfilippo reproduces letters, transmitted through Raquel Tibol's published collection, in which Kahlo discussed a portrait, dental debts and later problems with prosthetic teeth. [2] They establish a professional and personal connection, but the detailed 1948 price-and-debt letter concerns the portrait, not this 1952 still life.

The later paintings' transfer is less certain than their painted words. Sanfilippo reports Tibol's view that the two still lifes fulfilled an arrangement connected with dental treatment, then records a contrary account from Fastlicht's son Jorge: Samuel bought them separately. [2] Museo Roca repeats the dental-payment version for the pair. [1] These are substantive, conflicting historical accounts rather than details that can be averaged into a confident statement that Kahlo “paid her dentist with this painting.”

The dedication tells us Kahlo painted for Fastlicht and expressed affection in the work. It does not name a sum, mention a settled account or identify a later purchaser. [2] An original receipt, contemporary correspondence about this picture or a collection file could clarify the transaction. Describing the painting as dedicated to Fastlicht is therefore accurate without prematurely deciding whether it was bought, given or accepted against treatment.

Historical collection credits also require a date-sensitive reading. Museo Roca assigns the picture to Dr Samuel Fastlicht's collection, while Sanfilippo's note names a Dr Jorge Fastlicht collection and alludes to later custody without supplying a current registrar record. [1] [2] Those lines trace published associations with the family, not the present location of the painting. Tate and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts exhibition records identify the 1951 dog-figurine work, not this 1952 one. [3] [5]

Food, Place and Personal Address

Kahlo's painted words locate the work in Puebla, and the assortment of squash and fruit can be seen within the broader history of Mexican food painting. [2] In a Spanish-language essay, Alejandra Ortiz Castañares places modern Mexican still lifes in post-revolutionary debates about national culture and artistic form. [6] Her particular Fastlicht discussion concerns the 1951 painting, however; it is context for the second work rather than a source for its individual details.

The Puebla inscription offers stronger evidence for an intended addressee than a universal reading of the produce does. It ties a densely arranged naturaleza muerta to one person, place and year, while the painted colours and cut surfaces remain open to visual exploration. [1] [2] [3] To insist that every squash must encode illness or fertility would make the picture more predictable than the evidence allows. To strip away the dedication in pursuit of pure form would miss something Kahlo deliberately wrote into it.

The comparison with the 1951 work clarifies that choice. There Kahlo wrote in the first person that the painting belonged to Fastlicht and placed a dog among the produce; here she wrote that she painted for him with affection and set the words amid another arrangement. [1] [2] [3] Similar subject and recipient did not compel a repeated composition. The pair reveals how much she could change within the format of a small, directly addressed still life.

This 1952 painting can be studied without assigning it a current owner, a documented exhibition history or a single agreed transaction story. Its printed catalogue image, measurements and description; Sanfilippo's contemporary historical account; and the reported inscription together support its identity and much of its meaning. [1] [2] [3] They leave the physical support, original transfer and later whereabouts as questions for a future object file, not as blanks to be filled with details from the better-documented 1951 canvas.

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

Which visual and inscription details distinguish the 1952 Puebla still life from Kahlo's 1951 Fastlicht painting?

Context

What does the dedication establish, and why does it not settle the gift, payment or purchase question?

Open Question

How should Sanfilippo's named fruits and later symbolic readings be weighed against what the image itself shows?

Join the Conversation

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

References

  1. Ivanna Margarucci, Frida Kahlo: una vida a través del arte (Museo Roca, 2016), printed p. 84, illustrated entries 185 and 192, including the second work's title, date, material, dimensions and historical collection credit. View source text.
  2. José Sanfilippo B., “Frida y Fastlicht,” Revista ADM 62, no. 1 (2005), printed pp. 31–35, especially pp. 34–35 and note 21; the second painting, crop inventory, inscription and disputed transfer are distinguished from the earlier portrait transaction. View source text.
  3. Ivanna Margarucci, Frida Kahlo: una vida a través del arte (Museo Roca, 2016), printed p. 84, plates 185 and 192, compared with a controlled 400 × 253 research-only image. The low-resolution sources support looking and separation of the two compositions, not a physical examination or permission to reproduce the painting. View source text.
  4. University of La Laguna, La identidad cultural mexicana en la obra de Frida Kahlo, printed p. 71, text on the Puebla painting and figure 53 caption/image of the different 1951 work; interpretive suggestion and identity mismatch. View source text.
  5. Tate, public immunity-from-seizure object record, and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Frida: Beyond the Myth large-print guide (2025), pp. 161–163: their Fastlicht records identify the 1951 “Soy de” work, not the 1952 Puebla still life. View source text.
  6. Alejandra Ortiz Castañares, “La estética mexicana de la alimentación como sometimiento y liberación. De la Colonia a la Revolución,” Quaderni Culturali IILA 2, no. 2 (2020), pp. 67–82, especially pp. 78–80; general modern Mexican food-painting framework and discussion of the separate 1951 Fastlicht work. View source text.
  7. Museo Frida Kahlo, Frida interactive chronology, selected work dates used for the comparison timeline. The current work's date follows its cited object record. View source text.