MEXICO CITY - Representatives of the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Trust have filed a criminal suit here against the two recently published books on the charges of forging 1,200 art works of renowned painter Frida Kahlo.

“Most of them appear not to be by the artist, because connoisseurs of the artist’s works have said so,” attorney Jose Luis Perez Arredondo said Tuesday.

The trust, which functions under the auspices of Mexico’s central bank, protects the legacy of Mexican painter Kahlo (1907-1954) and her husband Diego Rivera (1886-1957), also a world famous painter.

The suit was filed at the Attorney General’s Office, where the media persons met experts on the artist’s works and personnel from the Anahuacalli Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo museums.

Arredondo said that the trust’s technical committee decided to file the suit after consulting the experts on the, allegedly, reproduced art works in the two books- “Finding Frida Kahlo” and “El Laberinto de Frida: Muerte, Dolor y Ambivalencia” (Frida’s Labyrinth: Death, Pain and Ambivalence)- containing illustrated letters, drawings and personal notes.

“We’re not making personal accusations nor are we judging the conduct. That is the subject of the lawsuit,” the lawyer said.

Last month, Mexican antique dealers Carlos Noloya and Leticia Fernandez had said that the 1,200 works are authentic, while admitting that they were very different from other pictorial works left by the artist.

A 1984 decree in Mexico had established that every Kahlo work is a national artistic monument, which gives it the protection of federal law.

Arredondo believed that now the AG office must determine the genuineness of the reproduced works and find out the owners and their responsibilities if they try to sell these.

Pedro Diego Alvarado, painter and grandson of Rivera, said that “what is said in the letters (that appear in one of the books) has no relationship with Frida’s universe”. His statement generated suspicions about these reproduced pieces.

US art critic and historian James Oles acknowledged that he has not seen the objects personally but said that as they appear in the books, they appear to be “forgeries done recently with old materials”.

–EFE