Her Early Life

Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderon, or Frida Kahlo de Rivera, famously known as Frida Kahlo, (1907-1954) was a well-known Mexican painter. She is known for numerous portraits, self-portraits and landscape paintings. She was born to a German father of Hungarian descent and a Mexican mother of Spanish and Native American descent. As a child, she suffered a bout of polio that left her with a life-long limp. Her father was a professional photographer and owned a studio. Frida visited his studio frequently and assisted him in his job and this helped her to acquire a sharp eye for photographic details.

Associated with Communism

Kahlo’s work is regarded as deeply personal and she is admired as a feminist icon. Being a bisexual, she did not conform to traditional gender roles. Kahlo is famous for painting self-portraits, intimate subject matter and subjects related to Mexican culture and colonialism. Kahlo was politically active and was a member of the Cachuchas, an organisation associated with Marxism. She joined the Young Communist League in the 1920s. She attended communist rallies and secret meetings.

Self-Taught During Recuperation

Frida Kahlo’s portraits deal with, besides others, themes such as identity, the human body and death. She is also famous for her tumultuous relationship with muralist Diego Rivera. As Frida was interested in studying science, she entered National Preparatory School in 1922. She met Rivera in the school where he was working on a mural for the school’s auditorium. Diego Rivera was also a communist. However, the two left the communist party because of Rivera’s strained relationship with the party and eventual expulsion from the party. Unfortunately, Kahlo met with a serious bus accident in 1925 which required her to undergo more than 30 medical operations during her lifetime. Frida took to studying the art of the old masters and taught herself to paint when she was recovering from the injury.

Her First Self-Portrait

‘Self-Portrait Wearing a Velvet Dress‘ (1926) was one of her early paintings depicting herself in the portrait. In this painting, Kahlo painted herself in a regal waist-length self-portrait against a dark background with rolling stylized waves. This painting also indicated her interest in realism. After her convalescence, Kahlo joined the Mexican Communist Party where she met Rivera once again. There, she showed Rivera some of her work and he encouraged her to follow her talent. Soon afterwards, she married Rivera in 1929 and changed her personal and painting style.

Travel to the US

Frida’s other painting ‘Frida and Diego Rivera‘ (1931), which she painted soon after her marriage to Rivera, she has shown herself in her new customer attire. She has attempted to show herself as a customary Mexican wife the way, presumably, Diego Rivera wanted her to be. Kahlo painted this work while she was travelling to the United States in 1910. During the period of her stay in the US from 1930 to 1933, Rivera was working on the commissions for murals that he had received from several cities.

Her Harrowing Works

She had to endure several miscarriages during this period and underwent the agony of the death of her mother. She also painted some of her most harrowing works such as ‘Henry Ford Hospital‘, (1932) and ‘My Birth’, (1932). In her painting ‘Henry Ford Hospital‘, she showed herself haemorrhaging on a hospital bed amid a barren landscape. In the other painting, ‘My birth‘, she painted a ‘taboo’ scene of a shrouded woman giving birth.

Her Successful Exhibition

Kahlo and her husband returned to Mexico in 1933 and lived in a newly constructed house which later became a meeting spot for artists and political activists. Andre Breton, a leading Surrealist, became her champion and he also wrote the introduction to the brochure for her first solo exhibition. He described her as a self-taught Surrealist. The exhibition was held at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in 1938 and it proved a success. The following year, she travelled to Paris where she met more Surrealists, including Marcel Duchamp, the only member whom she respected. The Louvre also acquired one of Khlo’s works, namely, ‘The Frame’ (1938). With this, Kahlo became the first 20th century Mexican artist to be included in the museum’s collection.

Divorce and Painting ‘The Two Fridas’

The couple divorced in 1939 following numerous extra-marital affairs involving both Frida and Rivera. Kahlo painted some of her famous works, including ‘The Two Fridas’ during that period. It is a large canvas measuring 1.74×1.73 metres showing twin figures holding hands and each figure representing an opposing side of Kahlo. The figure to the left is dressed in a Europian style wedding dress which her husband reportedly did not appreciate. The other figure on the right in the traditional Tehuana attire is, reportedly, the one Rivera loved the best. The portrait was the precise anatomical description of her own self.

Ill-health and the painting ‘Self-portrait with Portrait of Dr.Farill’

The couple mended their ways and moved together into her childhood home, La Casa Azul (The Blue House) in Coyocan. In 1943, Kahlo received an appointment as professor of painting at La Esmeralda, the Education Ministry’s School of Fine Arts. As her health began to decline further, she turned to alcohol and drugs for relief. However, Kahlo remained productive during the 1940s and painted numerous self-portraits. These portraits show her in different hairstyles and clothing. She always showed her typical impassive and steadfast gaze. During the final days of her life, she had to take assistance for walking. In her painting ‘Self-portrait with Portrait of Dr. Farill’ (1951), she appears seated in a wheelchair. She attended her first solo exhibition in Mexico in 1953 lying on the bed.

Life of Unending Pain

Kahlo was no stranger to pain and suffering. From her age at six, she contracted polio that left her debilitated till her last breath. The bus accident damaged several organs in the body, mainly her pelvis, and resulted in multiple surgical operations that restricted her movement in the later years. Kahlo lived a life of constant pain and suffering. Because of these surgical operations, Kahlo could not bear children. In addition to that, she had to have her leg amputated because of gangrene in the last stage of her life. Kahlo died in La Casa Azul a year later in 1954. After her death, Rivera redesigned her house La Casa Azul as a museum dedicated to Kahlo’s life. The museum opened to the public in 1958. Kahlo’s posthumous reputation of Kahlo grew steadily and she became more popular than she was when alive, which some critics called ‘Fridamania’ by the 21st century.