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OBSESSIONS. DECORATION. SALIENT FACTS. 12 O ne of the most talked- about international exhibitions of 2018 — the V&A London's take on Mexican painter and feminist icon Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) — has been updated for a fresh presentation stateside. "Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving" opens this month at the Brooklyn Museum. Scholars Catherine Morris and Lisa Small curate a new American look at Kahlo, one spun around a trove of personal belongings never before exhibited in the U.S. Among the highlights: the painter's signature traditional Tehuana clothing from the state of Oaxaca, which is reflective of her mother's half- indigenous heritage; stunning Mesoamerican silver jewelry that accessorized those vibrant ensembles; hand-painted corsets and a prosthetic leg wearing a red boot (required after childhood polio and a serious bus accident at the age of 18 shattered Kahlo's spinal column); and even a stash of the FRIDA CROSSES THE BORDER artist's Revlon cosmetics. Alongside 100 intimate artifacts of constructed feminist identity are archival photos taken by her German father, Guillermo Kahlo, a noted Mexico City photographer, as well as portraits by Edward Weston, Lola and Manuel Álvarez Bravo, and Nickolas Muray. The artist's possessions are spun around 10 pivotal canvases including Self-Portrait as a Tehuana from 1943, as well as drawings such as the one that gives the exhibition its name. "Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving," February 8 – May 12, at the Brooklyn Museum; brooklynmuseum. org. Catherine D. Anspon F ew parties in history are legendary, but the Surrealist ball hosted in 1972, at Château de Ferrières, with costumes by Salvador Dalí, tops the list. That epic evening inspired The Kinkaid School Auction chairs Tina Papandreou, Brooke Robertson, and Courtney Swanson to t h e m e t h i s year's event A Fantastical F ê t e , w i t h surreal black t i e a s t h e d re s s c o d e . H e l d e v e r y three years, the auction is a significant f u n d - r a i s e r for Houston's oldest private school. Taking it up another notch, decorator Alex Stillwell and PaperCity publisher Monica Bickers, co-chairs of the auction's Tastemaker Apple Project, asked 10 well-known creatives to decorate a very large resin apple. Artist Hunt Slonem painted his with trademark bunnies, pop artist Ashley Longshore designed a glittery candy apple inscribed, of course, "Bad Apple," John Derian d e c o u p a g e d h i s w i t h cheery vintage apple cutouts, M i l e s R e d d lacquered on his Schumacher POMME POLISHED Gracie wallpaper's gold-leaf apple Christopher Spitzmiller C u b i s t p a t t e r n , C h r i s t o p h e r Spitzmiller glazed his pomme purple and fashioned it into a lamp, and Gracie wallpaper applied 24K gold leaf before delicately painting a scene of butterflies. Other offerings came from Bunny Williams Home, architects Curtis & Windham, designer Ann Wolf, and the Kinkaid Art Group. Bidding is open to the public and runs from February 18 - February 23 at kinkaid2019.ggo.bid. Anne Lee Phillips Hunt Slonem's Bunnies Miles Redd Nickolas Muray's Frida in New York, 1946, at the Brooklyn Museum The artist's prosthetic leg with leather boot Kahlo's cotton Mazatec huipil and skirt The artist's Revlon nail polishes © DIEGO RIVERA AND FRIDA KAHLO ARCHIVES, BANCO DE MÉXICO. PHOTO JAVIER HINOJOSA, COURTESY OF V&A PUBLISHING. © NICKOLAS MURAY PHOTO ARCHIVES. PHOTO COURTESY BROOKLYN MUSEUM COURTESY THE ARTIST AND LAURA RATHE FINE ART