In May 1931, photographer Nickolas Muray traveled to Mexico on vacation where he met Frida Kahlo, a woman he would never forget. The two started a romance that continued on and off for the next ten years and a friendship that lasted until her death in 1954. Approximately fifty photographic portraits taken by Muray of Kahlo comprise this exhibition.

The photographs, dating from 1937 to 1946 explore Muray’s unique perspective as Kahlo’s friend, lover, and confidant. Muray’s photographs bring to light Kahlo’s deep interest in her Mexican heritage, her life and the people significant to her with whom shared a close friendship with.

Nan Coffey is a San Diego based artist with a background in animation. She has developed a stylized design aesthetic and freeform methods to promote connectivity, inclusivity, and love while drawing inspiration from her childhood obsessions with cinema, music, television, and pop culture.

Let’s Face It explores the universality of the portrait and its function to express emotions, identity, and cultural values, as shown through a variety of media present in the Museum’s permanent collection.

Reflecting themes of joy, friendship, and creative self-expression, this exhibition of photography is the result of a collaboration between students from the Juvenile Court and Community Schools and Outside the Lens, an organization that amplifies the voices of youth through photography, filmmaking, and digital media art workshops.