Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala & Venezuela

By Condor Verde Mexico • 17 April 2026

Not many people have heard of the Dolores Olmedo Museum, yet you may be surprised to hear that it holds the world's largest collection of paintings by Frida Kahlo, as well as 148 works by Diego Rivera.

The museum is also known for its breathtaking gardens and its inhabitants: the iconic Mexican hairless Xoloitzcuintli dogs and elegant peacocks.

The museum is set to reopen on 30 May after closing during the COVID pandemic and undergoing a restoration, modernization, and cataloguing project.

Who was Dolores Olmedo?

Dolores Olmedo (1908-2002) had quite a colorful life. As a young girl from a working-class background, she caused a scandal when her family discovered that she had posed nude for the painter Diego Rivera. Forbidden from seeing the artist anymore, it was not until many years later that their paths crossed again, by which time Olmedo had studied philosophy, law, music, and art history in Mexico; anthropology, museology, and art history in Paris; and had become one of the richest women in Mexico - a successful businesswoman, philanthropist, and patron of the arts. Rivera was broke, close to dying, and concerned about his legacy. At his urging, she went on a buying spree for her close friend, amassing a major collection of the painter's canvases in addition to works by Frida Kahlo, Diego's wife, with whom Olmedo had a tempestuous friendship fraught with jealousy over Rivera's affections. After Kahlo and Rivera's deaths, she bought a 16th-century hacienda in Xochimilco, which she later converted into a museum.

The museum's collection includes 148 works by Diego Rivera and the world's largest collection of Frida Kahlo paintings, 25 in all. Among the Kahlo works on display are some of her most important paintings, including "The Broken Column," "Henry Ford Hospital," "Self-Portrait with Monkey," and "A Few Small Nips." The museum also holds nearly 6,000 pre-Hispanic figurines and sculptures. Her private chambers, filled with extravagant displays of ivory and porcelain, showcase photos of Olmedo with virtually every famous person in the world.

In her will, she stated: "I want the Mexican people to know this heritage is non-transferable. It belongs only to them. It can never be extinguished or dismantled."

She did everything right: she kept her art collection together, she gave it a beautiful home, and she made her wishes known.

The perfect full-day tour:

The combination of art, culture, and nature makes the Dolores Olmedo Museum one of the most magical and culturally rich sites in Mexico City.

A visit to the museum can be combined with the floating gardens of Xochimilco, only 10 minutes away. Once used by the Aztecs to grow most of their food, the canals can now be explored on board a colorful "trajinera" (barge).

For lunch, the nearby Hacienda de Tlalpan restaurant is a colonial oasis of tranquility that serves delicious Mexican dishes.