The Big Man and the Little Woman - Part Four

               The Big man and the Little Woman - Part Four , Conclusion



           In the 1980's communism started to come apart. In China communist rulers turned away from communism. Then in that same decade, Mikhail Gorbachev became head of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev called for what he called 'perestroika' and 'glasnost' or restructuring and opening up the economy. He allowed citizens of the Soviet Union to speak out about the problems they faced.
     Yet as Gorbachev opened up the Soviet Union to the winds of change, it started to collapse. In 1991, on the heels of a failed coup by hardline communists, the Soviet Union just  fell apart and splintered into many separate republics. Its former eastern European satellites went their own way too.
    Communism by 1992 was nearly extinct and the prophesies of communists and marxists were now nearly as dead as the dodo. In light of this massive upheaval, much of Rivera's work seemed dated and completely off base. Though some of his works still retained their power.
    Yet as the 1990's progressed, Kahlo's work took centre stage. "I can't think of any other woman artist," a woman historian I knew said, "who is as famous as Frida Kahlo is right now." She said this over twenty years ago but it's still true to-day in 2015.
    Rivera's fame did not shrivel away. Yet by now Kahlo's light nearly outshone her onetime more famous husband. "It seems likely that Kahlo would have found this astonishing," said poet and art critic Edward Lucie-Smith. Yet it happened.
      The 20th century has witnessed many famous art couples. There was Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner,, Steiglitz and Georgia O'Keefe, Wilhelm de Kooning and Elaine de Kooning, Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning, and Michael Snow and Joyce Wieland.  Yet in all these cases, in life and in death, the male's fame outranked the female's. But in the case of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, this was no longer true. Now Frida Kahlo's reputation outranked that of her former husband's.
      It was a massive change. The little woman finally caught up with the big male artist and may have surpassed him in the public's mind. No one could have predicted this would happen.