BIOGRAPHY

Born on July 6, 1907 in Coyoacan, Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo was the third daughter of Guillermo Kahlo, a Hungarian Jew and noteworthy photographer, and Matilde Calderon, who was of Spanish and Indian descent.

Starting at an early age, Kahlo suffered many painful incidents in her life, many of which would influence her artwork. At age 18, while attending the National Preparatory School to study medicine and natural sciences, Kahlo and her boyfriend, were seriously injured when a streetcar collided with the bus in which she was riding. Her spinal column was broken in three places as was her pelvis; her right leg was broken in eleven; her right foot was dislocated and crushed; and her collarbone and two of her ribs were also broken. A handrail literally skewered her body at the level of the abdomen.

When she was taken to the hospital, doctors questioned whether she would live, let alone walk again. Miraculously Kahlo recovered, but it was a very slow process. She was sent home from the hospital exactly one month after the tragic accident. Still confined to her bed, she kept herself busy by painting. Her first paintings were of her family, most commonly her sisters, and friends who came to visit. During this time, using a mirror that had been put in her room, she also painted her first self-portrait, called Self-Portrait with Velvet Dress. This form of painting would grow and become her primary source of inspiration later in life

A few years after she started painting, Kahlo became politically aware. She identified with the Communist party of Mexico and joined in 1928. Also during this time, Kahlo met Diego Rivera, a great Mexican muralist. In spite of appearances, Kahlo and Rivera's marriage was not made in heaven. In fact, Kahlo herself stated that Diego Rivera was the second accident of her life. First of all, Frida was unable to have children due to the traumatic bus accident. This left a lasting impression and a deep void in Frida and Diego's life together. Secondly, Diego could not be faithful, having affairs with many women including Frida's sister. Kahlo herself had many affairs with both women and men, the most famous being Russian Communist Leon Trotsky and painter Georgia O'Keefe. These affairs destroyed their marriage and in 1940, ten years after they were wed, they were divorced. Their divorce did not last long however, and one year later they were remarried and remained married until Kahlo's death in 1954.

The epitome of creative genius, she left the world as dramatically as she lived in it, cremated in a public service. Some even said that, as her hair caught fire, they saw her smile.

ARTISTIC GENRE

In all of Frida Kahlo's years of painting she remained very faithful to the types of paintings she created. Exposing intimate aspects of herself, over one-third of her works were self-portraits. She explained that she created such a large number of self-portraits because she was so often alone and she was the person she knew best. She painted herself to project all of the suffering and physical pain that she was feeling onto the portrait.

In order to represent herself to the world, Kahlo used a lot of bloody imagery. For example, many of her paintings feature various bloody births and deaths, fetuses, corpses, and disembodied organs. The scenes she painted were taken from her life, and they were not embellished. The most recurring theme of Kahlo's art was the practice of making the outside show the inside; eliminating physical barriers such as skin, to exhibit on the outside of her body her inside feelings.

One painting, which was done in 1944, indicates the amount of suffering that she experienced in her life. This self-portrait is called The Broken Column. It was painted right after she had surgery and was ordered to wear a steel corset to make sure her spine would heal correctly. The painting itself creates a feeling of paralysis. Kahlo's anguish is made vivid by the appearance of nails that are driven into her naked body. Also present is a gap, resembling an earthquake fissure, which splits her torso and is held together by the steel corset. This gives the feeling that if not for the corset, a symbol of the invalid's imprisonment, she would surely fall in half.

A different aspect of Kahlo's painting involves her fusion with nature and the appearance of animals in her works. This theme stems from Kahlo's desire to have children. Many of her self-portraits have included her pets. These animals, such as parrots and monkeys, appear to be a substitute for children in her paintings. Her favorite pets were monkeys, which appear in several works including Self-Portrait with Monkeys, because they symbolized promiscuity and fertility. In many of her works one can find symbols of fertility, a concept that became an obsession with Kahlo. One example of this obsession is represented in the self-portrait Roots. This painting of Kahlo with roots covering her body and growing into the ground is an expression of her desire to participate in the flow of the universe.

Paintings