You think by now you know everything there is to know about Frida Kahlo. But a new-ish exhibition at the just reopened @deyoungmuseum , Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can be Deceiving that began at the Casa Azul, and a new companion book, Frida Kahlo and San Francisco delve deeper into the foundational San Francisco periods of Kahlo (and Diego Rivera's) tumultuous life.

The two images here tell a tale of the short early burst of matrimonial harmony in the Rivera's life--and yes she was Madame Rivera at this point. She was all of 23 years old (he, 43) when they arrived in San Francisco for his commission to paint a mural at the SF Art Institute. They fell in with other luminaries.

She seems to have become something of a pet of the local artists. Despite her feeling that American women were 'dull gringas', she befriended a number of women, in particular Dorothea Lange. They had both had polio, and Lange, who also had a withered leg, had gifted her with the doctor who was to become her guardian angel, Leo Eloesser.

In spite of this deformity (and attendant lifelong pain from this and her horrific bus accident), Frida was a show off. She wore her traditional Mexican garb in the streets and turned heads. She began her practice of getting well known photographers to shoot her. She began to emerge from Diego's shadow. So maybe the gringas were dull but something about being in the US did inspire her. The next decade of affairs (he Paulette Goddard, she, Leon Trotsky among many others), recriminations and Frida finding her own way as a very talented artist has been well documented. Ten years later, she and Diego had divorced, remarried in San Francisco and she had become fully Frida Kahlo.