The only recorded voice record of Frida Kahlo that is probably in Mexico | Art and design

Frida Kahlo may have one of the most recognizable and common faces of the art world, but what did her voice look like?

French photographer Giséle Freund once described it as "melodious and warm," but thanks to the National Library of Sound of Mexico, we can now know for sure.

The library discovered what it believed to be Kahlo's first recorded vocal record, taken from a pilot episode of the 1955 El Bachiller radio show aired after his death in 1954.

The episode featured a profile of the husband of the artist Kahlo, Diego Rivera. She reads an excerpt from her essay Portrait of Diego, from the catalog of a 1949 exhibition at the Palace of Fine Arts, which celebrates 50 years of Rivera's work.

"It's a gigantic and huge child, with a friendly face and a sad look," she says, translated by the Agence France Presse. (A different English translation of the text is available on Google Arts & Culture.)

"His big, dark, extremely intelligent and tall eyes are rarely motionless. They almost come out of their sockets because of their swollen, protruding eyelids – like a toad. They allow his gaze to perceive a much wider field of vision, as if they were conceived especially for a painter of large spaces and crowds ".

It is estimated that the recording was made in 1953 or 1954.

In the press release, Mexican Culture Secretary Alejandra Frausto said that if it was Kahlo's voice – an affirmation that the authorities continue to investigate – it could be the only audio recording of the artist.

The role of the library is to preserve and make public the documentary sound archives of Mexico. Its collection, which has been in existence for more than a decade, has taken the voices of some of the most important historical figures in the country, but the national director of libraries, Pável Granados, said that Kahlo's voice was the most requested voice and the most sought after visitors.

"The voice of Frida has always been a great enigma, an endless search," Granados said at a press conference. "Until now, there had never been a recording of Frida Kahlo."

The radio show from which the recording comes, El Bachiller, was named in the honor of its host Álvaro Gálvez y Fuentes "El Bachiller", qualified by the Ministry of Culture as "principal documentalist voices of his time ".

The sound library contains 1,300 El Bachiller bands from its collection, which will need to be digitized and cataloged to determine if more of Kahlo's voices are part of it.