39 Rare and Amazing Vintage Portraits of Mexicans in the 1860s

Here’s a photo album of Mexican occupationals made by the studio “Cruces y Campa” in the 1860s. The album contains portraits of occupations, vendors and marketeers.

Antíoco Cruces and Luis Campa made a brilliant career as photographers in Mexico City from between the years of 1862 and 1877. Their studio called “Art Photography” was located near the Metropolitan Cathedral. They were very successful in the year 1872 marketing thousands of business cards with the portrait of President Benito Juarez, who had died in July.

Their postcards were popularly known as “Business Cards” and their sales was very popular both in Mexico and in Europe. These portraits are approximately 7 cm high by 5 cm wide, and were stuck in rigid boards that measured 10 cm by 6 cm. They succeeded in selling themselves with great success as a novelty of the time.

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Rare and Loving Photos of Frida Kahlo From the Last Years of Her Life in Mexico City

In 1950, photographer Gisèle Freund embarked on a two-week trip to Mexico, but she wouldn’t leave until two years later. There she met the legendary couple Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.

Welcomed into their home, she immersed herself in their private lives and the cultural and artistic diversity of the country, taking hundreds of photographs.

These powerful photographs, among the last taken before Kahlo’s death, bear poignant witness to Frida’s beauty and talent.

Frida Kahlo at work, 1951—Photo: © Gisèle Freund / IMEC / Fonds MCC

Frida Kahlo at home in Mexico City, 1951—Photo: © Gisèle Freund / IMEC / Fonds MCC

Frida Kahlo in the garden of her house, La Casa Azul, in Coyoacán, Mexico City, 1951—Photo: © Gisèle Freund / IMEC / Fonds MCC

Photo: © Gisèle Freund / IMEC / Fonds MCC

Photo: © Gisèle Freund / IMEC / Fonds MCC

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Rare and Beautiful Portraits of a Young Frida Kahlo Taken by Her Father From Between the 1910s and 1930s

Painter Frida Kahlo was a Mexican self-portrait artist who was married to Diego Rivera and is still admired as a feminist icon.

Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderon, as her name appears on her birth certificate was born on July 6, 1907 in the house of her parents, known as La Casa Azul (The Blue House), in Coyoacan. At the time, this was a small town on the outskirts of Mexico City.

Her father, Guillermo Kahlo (1872-1941), was born Carl Wilhelm Kahlo in Pforzheim, Germany. He was the son of the painter and goldsmith Jakob Heinrich Kahlo and Henriett E. Kaufmann.

Kahlo claimed her father was of Jewish and Hungarian ancestry, but a 2005 book on Guillermo Kahlo, Fridas Vater (Schirmer/Mosel, 2005), states that he was descended from a long line of German Lutherans.

Wilhelm Kahlo sailed to Mexico in 1891 at the age of nineteen and, upon his arrival, changed his German forename, Wilhelm, to its Spanish equivalent, 'Guillermo'. During the late 1930s, in the face of rising Nazism in Germany, Frida acknowledged and asserted her German heritage by spelling her name, Frieda (an allusion to "Frieden", which means "peace" in German).

Below is a collection of rare and beautiful portraits of young Frida Kahlo, taken by her father Guillermo Kahlo from the 1910s to early 1930s.

Frida Kahlo at age 2, c.1909

Frida Kahlo at age 4, 1911

Frida Kahlo at age 5, 1912

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