MEXICO CITY—Frida Kahlo is a revered figure in Mexico, though few seem able to agree on what she actually produced. A verbal civil war continues to rage in the Mexican art world as Kahlo experts argue over the authenticity of a once obscure Kahlo archive that will be featured in Finding Frida Kahlo, a book by Barbara Levin due out from Princeton Architectural Press in November.

The archive of drawings, prints, and assorted memorabilia is owned by Carlos and Leticia Noyola, Mexican antiques dealers. They say they bought the works from a reclusive lawyer, who claimed to have obtained the works in 1979 from a woodcarver friend of Kahlo's.

The first signs of conflict appeared in June when Carlos Phillips Olmedo, the head of the Diego Rivera-Frida Kahlo Trust at the Central Bank of Mexico, which manages the artists’ copyrights, responded to a notice about the book in the New York Times with a letter stating that “in no way do we recognize [the works in the archive] as originals of Frida Kahlo.” Museum officials, gallery owners, artists, and art historians in Mexico City later published a letter declaring that the works were fakes, beseeching government officials “responsible for Mexico’s artistic patrimony to intervene immediately.”

Christopher Knight argues in the Los Angeles Times that the dispute can be viewed as an allegory for the complex mixture of academic, financial, and historical interests that become entangled in managing a famous artist’s legacy. Those who claim the archive is a forgery accuse opponents of exploiting Kahlo’s popularity. In turn, supporters of authenticity suggest that critics are attempting to protect their own financial and academic interests in Kahlo’s work by limiting access to what could be new material outside of their control.

Mary-Anne Martin, an art dealer who has sold works by Kahlo in the past and has not viewed the collection, is among those who are skeptical of the archive’s authenticity. “If I had to jump on a plane every time somebody made a fake painting, I would never get any work done,” she said.

Read more from art critic Christopher Knight, who has viewed the collection, at the Los Angeles Times.