Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera are, without a doubt, the two most famous Mexican artists of the twentieth century, as notorious for their scandalous relationship and political views as they were for their creative genius. She was twenty-one years younger than him; he was a communist. Kahlo had an affair with Leon Trotsky; Rivera had one with Kahlo's sister. They married, divorced, and remarried a year later which, for the ultra-conservative environment of Mexico in the 1920s and 1930s was, to say the least, unusual.

The current exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, features works from the collection of Natasha and Jacques Gelman. The Gelmans were an Eastern European couple who emigrated to Mexico City in the late 1930s, where they met, fell in love, and started their art collection. During those tumultuous years, Mexico witnessed an influx of European refugees, including some of the most important figures of the Surrealist movement. At the heart of this artistic and intellectual whirlwind were Rivera and Kahlo.