Late Mexican painter has bloomed into a cultural icon.(The Orange County Register)

In the window of a frame shop in downtown Santa Ana, Calif., hangs a painting of a skeleton smoking a cigarette and holding a mask. The word "Frida" is traced on the skeleton's forehead, but it hardly matters. With its heavy eyebrows and challenging gaze, the face on the mask clearly belongs to celebrated Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.

Not far away, at the Libreria Martinez bookstore on Main Street, the image of the artist is everywhere _ from a half- dozen oil paintings lining the walls to a museum poster behind the cash register, on candles, on postcards and on the covers of books _ both novels and nonfiction.

"Frida," a new film biography starring Salma Hayek and directed by Julie Taymor, may be the most high-profile of artworks paying homage to the painter, but it's certainly not the only one. Kahlo, who was overshadowed in her lifetime by her flamboyant husband, muralist Diego Rivera, continues to be reimagined by artists and admirers in surprising ways.

"She's inspired me not only as an artist but as a woman. She was an intelligent, talented woman," said Emilia Garcia, an ...