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Cristina Kahlo denounced the Frida Kahlo Corporation for the exploitation of Frida's image
05 July 2026
"The commercialisation of Frida's image has gone too far" Frida's great-granddaughter, Cristina Kahlo said at the opening of Tate Modern exhibition.
She accuses the Frida Kahlo Corporation of exploitation for using the painter’s likeness on Shein, Amazon and properties in Miami, and denounces the rampant commodification of the artist.
She has broken her silence in an interview with the British newspaper "The Times", openly lashing out at the Frida Kahlo Corporation (FKC), the Panamanian company that holds the commercial rights to the painter’s name and image. According to Cristina’s analysis, the spark that ignited this commercial drift dates back to the publication of Hayden Herrera’s biography in 1983, a book that transformed her great-aunt into an icon of feminism and civil rights, whilst also laying the foundations for a double-edged sword that has completely distorted her artistic value.
Today, the brand is licensed for a wide variety of products: from clothing by the Chinese giant Shein to tequila-scented candles, as well as an official shop on Amazon and even the design of the luxury Frida Kahlo Wynwood Residences development in Miami, a 14-storey skyscraper featuring a giant mural of the artist on its façade.
This commercial pervasiveness stems from a deep rift within the family tree: the company FKC was founded in 2004 by Isolda Pinedo Kahlo and her daughter Maria Cristina Romeo Pinedo as a joint venture with the Venezuelan entrepreneur Carlos Dorado, who holds a 51 per cent stake. The company was founded without the knowledge of Isolda’s brother, Antonio – the father of Cristina herself, who today denounces the family’s ethical ousting.
According to Cristina Kahlo, this commercial paradox reached its peak with the opening of the exhibition "Frida: The Making of an Icon" at the Tate Modern in London, a travelling exhibition from the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston that is exploring the very phenomenon of ‘Fridamania’. The museum tour is showcasing over 200 commercial memorabilia items and, in a move that Cristina considers either cynical or sloppy, is leading visitors straight into the gift shop.
