Casa Roja displays Frida Kahlo’s very first oil painting, created long before she believed art could be her life. This piece was stored privately by the family for decades and only surfaced with the museum’s opening. Seeing it is like holding a candle to her earliest instincts. The brushstrokes are unpolished, almost cautious, but they show the beginning of the eye she later became famous for. It is the single most important key to understanding her transformation from a curious child to a global icon.

Inside one of the rooms sits a small, earthy-toned mural that researchers now believe to be the only wall painting Frida ever created. It is not grand or dramatic. It is quiet, tucked into the architecture, easy to miss if you rush. But that is what makes it extraordinary. This mural predates her artistic confidence, revealing how she experimented with scale and color before she dared to express herself on canvas. It is the rarest Frida artifact in existence because it shows her playing rather than performing.

Casa Roja is filled with personal items that never made it to Casa Azul. Childhood dolls. School ribbons. Handwritten letters. Clothing pieces worn during her teenage years. Even an embroidery she made at age five. These objects stayed with her descendants, untouched by public exhibitions. Together, they show a softer Frida, one shaped by family rituals, games, and quiet domestic life. You see her not as an icon, but as a child navigating ordinary joys and fears.

Guillermo Kahlo’s studio tools sit inside the museum as proof of his impact on Frida’s artistic vision. His cameras, glass plates, and retouching instruments give you insight into how she learned discipline, symmetry and technical precision. Before painting, Frida spent long hours assisting him in his workspace. These early lessons shaped the controlled compositions, centered figures, and direct gazes that later defined her portraits. Casa Roja is the only place where you can trace this influence directly.

Casa Roja belonged to Frida’s sister Cristina, the only sibling who had children. Cristina raised her family here, and her descendants still curate the museum today. This continuity gives the house a warmth no other Frida site has. The rooms hold layers of memories that were never staged for tourism. You feel the private conversations, the celebrations, the grief, and the everyday life that shaped Frida’s emotional world. Understanding Cristina is essential, because she was Frida’s anchor, her mirror, and her safe place.

Her first oil painting and her childhood embroidery show the beginning of her artistic instincts. These pieces are priceless because they predate her accident, her marriage and her fame.

This mural is believed to be the only wall painting Frida ever created. It is subtle, almost hidden, and many visitors walk past it. It represents the earliest evidence of how she saw color and shape.

Cameras, glass plates, retouching tools and studio items reveal how much Frida absorbed from her father. Her precision with portrait composition started here.

The emotional core of the house. Cristina Kahlo raised her children here and kept the home within the family for generations. Today, her granddaughter Mara Romeo Kahlo curates the museum.

Dolls, letters, clothing, school photographs, and tiny personal relics that never left family closets until this museum opened.