This Kiss / A letter to Nickolas Muray | Frida Kahlo, 1931

Nickolas Muray, Frida Kahlo, 1938

“This is specially for the back of your neck.”

Frida Kahlo

Nickolas Muray (1892-1965) was a Hungarian-born American photographer and Olympic saber fencer.

Between 1920 and 1940, Muray made over 10,000 portraits. His 1938 portrait of Frida Kahlo, made while Kahlo sojourned in New York, attending her exhibit at the Julien Levy Gallery, became the best known and loved portrait made by Muray. Muray and Kahlo were at the height of a ten-year love affair in 1939 when the portrait was made. Their affair had started in 1931, after Muray was divorced from his second wife and shortly after Kahlo’s marriage to Mexican muralist painter Diego Rivera. It outlived Muray’s third marriage and Kahlo’s divorce and remarriage to Rivera by one year, ending in 1941. Muray wanted to marry, but when it became apparent that Kahlo wanted Muray as a lover, not a husband, Muray took his leave for good and married his fourth wife, Peggy (Margaret) Muray. He and Kahlo remained good friends until her death, in 1954.