Heckscher Building

Office tower at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street in Manhattan, today the Crown Building, which housed the young Museum of Modern Art. In Hayden Herrera’s Frida it is where Diego Rivera’s 1931 retrospective opens, with Frida in Tehuana dress at his side.

At a glance

Source	Author	Role	In one line
Frida	Hayden Herrera	setting	Then home of MoMA, where Rivera prepares and opens his record-setting 1931 retrospective.

Frida — Hayden Herrera (1983)

Source: Frida - A Biography of Frida Kahlo · Original · Readwise highlight

After installing their belongings in an apartment at the Hotel Barbizon-Plaza, on Sixth Avenue and Central Park South, Frida and Diego went at once to the Heckscher Building, on Fifty-seventh Street and Fifth Avenue, which at that time housed the Museum of Modern Art.

• Role: setting
• In the book: In Chapter 9, on arriving in New York in November 1931, the couple inspect the galleries and the high-floor studio fitted out for Rivera, who has little more than a month to prepare. The December 22 opening draws the Rockefellers and New York society, with Frida in Tehuana dress beside her husband, and the show sets an attendance record.
• Why it matters: The MoMA retrospective is the reason for the first New York stay, and its opening is Frida’s first appearance as a conspicuous Tehuana figure in American society.