Frida Kahlo Exhibit Opens in Mexico

Frida Kahlo is known to the world as an artist unafraid of documenting her pain and vulnerability.

Now Kahlo is also being celebrated as an intellectual, social activist, and revolutionary in an exhibit opening Wednesday at Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes to commemorate the 100th anniversary of her birth.

Some 350 works will be displayed, including 50 letters written by Kahlo, more than 100 photos of the artist and a collection of paintings being shown for the first time. The show also includes talks on the artist's life and her influence in politics and the arts.

''It is important for our visitors to know that Frida wrote, thought, challenged the Americans ... Here they will see the complete Frida,'' Bellas Artes Director Roxana Gonzalez said.

The wife of muralist Diego Rivera, Kahlo is known as much for her outspoken style as for her intensely personal paintings. Her life has inspired several plays and films, including the 2002 movie ''Frida,'' starring Salma Hayek.

Born in 1907, Kahlo was disabled in a bus crash and had polio as a child. She was openly bisexual and had an affair with Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky. Kahlo used her self-portraits to deal with the accident, her tumultuous marriage and her inability to have children.

To mark the anniversary, the Blue House, Kahlo's Mexico City family home-turned-museum, will display nearly 300 pieces of clothing found more than two ago in a trunk in an unused bathroom.

The Bellas Artes exhibit runs through Aug. 19.