Frida Kahlo @ Arlington's Artisphere

Frida Kahlo's powerful and deeply personal paintings are rightfully recognized as 20th-century masterpieces made by a remarkable Mexican woman who channeled the agonizing pain of an early physical injury and the heartache of a tempestuous marriage that clashed with a free-wheeling romantic life into her artwork.

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera (1932) (c) Carl Van Vechten

Her direct, defiant gaze permeates many of her often surreal self-portraits. Salma Hayek portrayed her in the 2002 biopic "Frida." Her former home in Mexico City now serves as a museum dedicated to her life and work.

Now Arlington's ARTISPHERE is - according to its own Web site - the first and only U.S. venue to present FRIDA KAHLO: HER PHOTOS, an exhibition of the artist's personal photographs.

The show opened on February 23 and closes on MARCH 25.

As reported on February 27 by NPR: "Kahlo's life is revealed through a recently released collection of personal photographs showing for the first time in these United States. The show is complemented by a number of film screenings, concerts, and workshops."

I must confess I have yet to visit ARTISPHERE, which bills itself as "a new breed of urban arts center that features four distinct performance venues, three visual art galleries, a 4,000 square foot ballroom, and free Wi-Fi."

The "blue house" where Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera lived is now a museum. (c) Wiki. Commons

The Washington Post's Lavanya Ramanthan, however, gave this exhibit a lukewarm reception, claiming that it "isn’t nearly as sexy as you hope it will be."

The reason?

Everything you see on the walls at Artisphere are brilliantly reproduced (thanks to new techniques) copies: "The actual photos went on display in 2007 at the Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico, and have remained there since."

But c'mon - this is Frida Kahlo we're talking about here.

Given that her life still looms large and continues to fascinate her legions of admirers all over the world, I for one certainly still look forward to checking out a show that sheds light on the private life of a great 20th-century artist in a 21st-century artspace.

(Diego Rivera's Murals for the Museum of Modern Art also look interesting.)

Frida Kahlo (1932) (c) Carl van Vechten/Wikimedia Commons