What is there to learn about Frida Kahlo (1907–1954), the great painter who continues to make headlines long after her death? A new museum at her family home, the Casa Roja in Mexico City, promises to give art lovers fresh insights into her early life and career.

Called the Museo Casa Kahlo, the institution will open on September 27 in the city’s historic Coyoacán district. Rather than focusing on Kahlo’s storied later career and marriage to fellow artist Diego Rivera, Museo Casa Kahlo will go back to the artist’s roots, such as her father’s photography work. It will showcase Kahlo’s beginnings and her artistic inspirations, as well as highlighting other important cultural figures from her life.

Objects on view will include Kahlo’s childhood photographs, her dolls, her jewelry, her clothing, and her letters, as well as an embroidery the artist made at just five years old, her very first oil painting, and her only known mural, recently rediscovered. There will also be temporary contemporary art exhibitions of Mexican, Latin American, and women artists.

“This is a dream long held by our family,” Mara Romeo Kahlo, Cristina grandniece, said in a statement. “Frida’s legacy belongs to the world, but it begins here—on this land, in these homes, and in the culture that shaped her. Museo Casa Kahlo will allow us to tell new stories, share family secrets, host new voices, and build a future that honors her spirit.”

Casa Roja, which is becoming the Museo Casa Kahlo, a new museum about Frida Kahlo. Photo: Courtesy of the Museo Casa Kahlo, Mexico City.

The new museum is adjacent to Kahlo’s childhood home, the famous Casa Azul, built by her father, Guillermo Kahlo (1871–1941), as reported by the New York Times. Kahlo continued to live there as an adult with her husband, Rivera, who donated the property to the Mexican state upon his death in 1957. It opened to the public as the Museo Frida Kahlo in 1958.

But Kahlo’s parents also owned Casa Roja, a property the artist later purchased from them as a home for her sister, Cristina Kahlo (1908–1964). It has stayed in the family ever since, passing to Christina’s daughter, Isolde P. Kahlo, and granddaughter, Romeo Kahlo, who with her daughter Mara Deanda Kahlo has led the charge to convert it into a museum.

“For the first time, the voice of the family will be at the heart of how Frida’s story is told,” Frida Hentschel Romeo, Kahlo’s great-grand-niece, told Vogue at an event in New York announcing the project. “This museum isn’t just about her work—it’s about her world. It’s about how the people closest to her shaped who she became. And it’s also about the living family—those of us who carry her legacy forward.”

Frida Khalo in 1931. Getty Images.

To transform the home into a museum, the family has enlisted New York architecture firm the Rockwell Group.

Kahlo’s family has launched a new nonprofit in New York, the Fundación Kahlo, to oversee the new institution, with public relations manager Rick Miramontez serving as chair. The foundation also plans to introduce the biennial Kahlo Art Prize and a grant program called Las Ayudas. Adán García Fajardo, academic director at the Museum of Memory and Tolerance in Mexico City, will lead the new museum.

The museum at Casa Azul is managed by the Fideicomiso de los Museos Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo trust, administered by the central bank of Mexico.