A new exhibition billed as the largest and most comprehensive showcase of Frida Kahlo's oeuvre opened in Mexico City on Wednesday to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the feminist artist's birth.

Journalists look at The Two Fridas during a preview of the National Homage to Frida Kahlo on the 100th anniversary of her birth.Journalists look at The Two Fridas during a preview of the National Homage to Frida Kahlo on the 100th anniversary of her birth.
(Dario Lopez-Mills/Associated Press)
The exhibit at Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes comprises approximately 350 artworks and artifacts, including dozens of personal letters and photos.

A collection of paintings will also be displayed to the public for the first time and, throughout the show's two-month run, organizers will offer talks about Kahlo's life and influence.

"It is important for our visitors to know that Frida wrote, thought, challenged the Americans," Bellas Artes director Roxana Gonzalez said.

"Here they will see the complete Frida."

Gallery officials are anticipating more than 300,000 people will attend the exhibit, which closes August 19.

A mural announces the opening of the most complete exhibit of Frida Kahlo's work ever shown according to organizers.A mural announces the opening of the most complete exhibit of Frida Kahlo's work ever shown according to organizers.
(Dario Lopez-Mills/Associated Press)
For the anniversary celebration, Casa Azul (The Blue House), Kahlo's former Mexico City home that has since been turned into a museum, has also scheduled a Kahlo exhibit of nearly 300 pieces of traditional clothing and artifacts discovered in a trunk in the artist's home a few years ago.

Last week, a team cataloguing documents in the home announced it had uncovered more than 100 previously unknown drawings created by Kahlo and her husband, Mexican muralist Diego Rivera.

Born in 1907, Kahlo is one of the world's best-known women painters.

The outspoken artist began painting in her late teens, while recuperating from a serious bus crash that left her with fractured bones and a broken back.

The accident and the polio she had suffered as a child left Kahlo unable to conceive a child, disabled and in constant pain for the rest of her life. Her work often explored themes such as disfigurement and pain.

Kahlo's open bisexuality, her communist beliefs and her stormy relationship with Rivera also informed her colourful, deeply personal self-portraits and other paintings.

Kahlo died in 1954.

With files from the Associated Press