Frida Kahlo. In my mind, she is one of the most iconic and recognizable artists of the 20th century and a master at crafting and shaping her public persona. Her identity, a carefully molded amalgam of her ethnicity, politics and physical ailments, intrigued the world as much as her stunning paintings.

While I don’t remember any specific dialogue or plot lines from the Frida Kahlo biopic starring Salma Hayek from 2002, I can still see the bold colors and clothing and Casa Azul in my mind. That’s how memorable the visuals were and a testament to the unique style and art that Frida created.

Kahlo’s personal artifacts, which were locked away in the Casa Azul, are on exhibit for the first time in the United States at the Brooklyn Museum’s Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving. These objects included hand-painted corsets and prosthetics that she used throughout her life as well as examples of her Tehuana clothing, pre-colonial jewelry, and Mesoamerican ceramics that Kahlo and her husband Diego Rivera used to decorate their home. Through these objects and in combination with some of her portraits and paintings, we are invited to get to know this complex and magnetic artist a little bit more.

A side note: Frida seemed to have had a love-hate relationship with NYC. On the one hand, she marveled at the energy and creativity of the city. On the other, she loathed the shallow emphasis on money and status. She visited NYC with her husband Diego Rivera when he was commissioned to work on a mural at Rockefeller Center in 1934 but was treated more like a pretty accessory at the time. Four years later, she would return triumphantly to New York for her solo exhibit at the Julien Levy Gallery and was finally treated as a talented artist in her own right.