A new television series based on the life of Frida Kahlo is on the way. Variety reports that the artist’s estate has collaborated with the Miami-based company BTF Media to create a show offering a faithful and more authentic perspective on the artist’s turbulent life. 

Few figures in the art world have undergone quite the level of speculation that the celebrated Latinx artist has been subjected to. Her legacy has been exhaustively excavated, inspiring a host of biographies, documentaries and films – including the Oscar-winning biopic Frida [2002], starring Salma Hayek. And, despite the iconoclastic nature of her work and her personal ideology, her image has been appropriated endlessly as an icon of spurious girl power values across popular culture, commodified as Barbie dolls, face filters, emojis, cosmetics, and even co-opted by Theresa May who notoriously wore a bracelet adorned with Kahlo’s portrait when she took the stage at the 2017 Conservative Party Conference. 

Kahlo’s existence was famously marred by pain, contracting polio as a child and being injured in a near-fatal traffic accident, the consequences of which plagued her throughout her brief life. Her dramatic marriage, divorce, and re-marriage to fellow artist Diego Rivera are well-documented. In the pages of her own notebook, she compared their meeting to a deathly tragedy: “I suffered two great accidents in my life, one in which a streetcar knocked me down … the other accident is Diego.”

This upcoming TV series promises to offer a new perspective on the much-mythologised artist. According to the painter’s great-niece, Mara Romeo Kahlo, “the series seeks to portray Frida as she has never been seen before. The goal is to present a unique perspective based on what her family knows about her and show how she really lived her life.”

“This project will allow Frida to be shown as a woman whose art represented empowerment, hope and power, and will allow her family to share with the audience how her legacy continues to inspire thousands of people around the world,” said Alfonso Duran, general director of Frida Kahlo Management.

BTF co-founder Ricardo Coeto added, “Frida was known for her colourful self-portraits. Her self-portraits had different themes, such as her identity, her human body, and death. She was considered a hero to many because she did not allow society to get to her; instead, she used her struggles as her strength.”

Each episode will undertake to explore the lesser-known aspects of Kahlo’s life and reveal truths about the real artist, as known and loved by those closest to her. More details of the project are set to be unveiled at a later date.