We explain who Frida Kahlo was, what her childhood was like and the development of her works. Also, what was her style and what was her death like?
Illness and a serious accident marked Frida Kahlo’s life and work.
Who was Frida Kahlo?
Frida Kahlo, whose birth name was Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón, was a Mexican painter born in Coyoacán on July 6, 1907 and died on July 13, 1954.
In her childhood, Frida suffered from polio and, when she was 18, A serious bus accident almost ended his life.. As a result of this incident, she underwent 32 surgeries throughout her life. The difficulties of her life are reflected in her work.
She was the wife of the well-known Mexican painter Diego Rivera.who introduced her to the circle of the most important artists of the time, and she received recognition from prominent figures in the world of art such as Marcel Duchamp, André Breton, Vasili Kandinski and Pablo Picasso.
His works also express his political and social commitment. His greatest recognition came after his deathespecially since the 1970s, and is currently considered one of the most important artists in Latin America.
Frida Kahlo’s birth and childhood
Frida Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907 in Coyoacán, Mexico. Her father, the photographer Guillermo Kahlo, was German of Jewish-Hungarian origin, and her mother, Matilde Calderón, was Mexican of Spanish and indigenous descent and born in Mexico City.
When Frida was a child, He learned from his father how to develop, retouch and color photographswhich influenced his later vocation for painting.
At six years of age fell ill with polio. Her father took care of her during the six months of convalescence. As a result of her illness, a limp plagued her throughout her life.
The accident and the painting of Frida Kahlo
In 1922, Frida entered the National Preparatory School in Mexico City. Her intention was to study medicine. However, on September 17, 1925 The bus he was travelling on collided with a tram and Frida was seriously injured.
Although she managed to survive, she suffered multiple injuries that marked her life. Her spine was fractured and, over the years, she underwent more than 30 surgeries and had to wear plaster corsets. In the first months of convalescence, while He couldn’t get out of bed, he abandoned the idea of studying medicine and began painting.. In 1926 he painted the first self-portrait of him.
Frida Kahlo and the Communist Party
Two years after the accident, Frida had improved enough to be able to meet her friends again and to associate with personalities from the fields of art, thought and politics. She identified herself with a cultural movement that proposed recovering aspects of Mexican popular traditionwhich included indigenous influence.
In 1928, his friend Germán del Campo introduced him to the Cuban communist leader Julio Antonio Mella, who lived in exile in Mexico with his partner, the Italian photographer Tina Modotti. Frida began attending meetings of the Mexican Communist Party and entered into a romantic relationship with Diego Rivera, who had belonged to the party since 1922.
After a stay in the United States between 1930 and 1933 with Rivera, whom she had married in 1929, she returned to Mexico City. Between 1937 and 1939 gave shelter to the exiled Russian communist Leon Trotskypersecuted by the Stalinist government, who ended up assassinated in 1940.
Frida maintained his adherence to communism for the rest of his life. When he died, his coffin was covered with the flag of the Mexican Communist Party.
Frida Kahlo’s marriage to Diego Rivera
Frida and Diego married in 1929, when she was 22 and he was 42.
Frida met the muralist Diego Rivera in 1922, when he painted a mural at the National Preparatory School she attended. However, their love relationship began when in 1928 they were introduced by the communist militants Julio Antonio Mella and Tina Modotti.
Frida showed her works to Rivera and he encouraged her to continue painting. They married in 1929, when she was 22 and he was 42.The marriage was unstable, among other things because of the extramarital affairs of both and, especially, because of the relationship that Rivera had with Frida’s younger sister. This led to their divorce in 1939. However, at the end of 1940 they remarried.
Frida’s relationship with Rivera influenced her artistic style but also her way of dressing. She used to wear colorful outfits characteristic of native women from some regions of Mexico, especially the Tehuana costumes, which her husband liked. These included necklaces and combs or flower headdresses, and became a distinctive trademark of Frida Kahlo.
Motherhood attempts and her death
Frida died at the age of 47 due to a pulmonary embolism.
On three occasions Frida became pregnant by her husband but, Due to her health problems, she lost all her pregnancies.In some of her works she expressed her frustrated desire to be a mother and the pain caused by failed pregnancies.
Throughout her life, Frida continued to suffer from illnesses and medical treatments. Her health worsened around 1950 until, finally, He died on July 13, 1954 at the age of 47.following a pulmonary embolism. Some versions suggested that it could have been a suicide, but no evidence was ever presented to support this theory.
Her wish was not to be buried. (he said that he had been in bed for many years), so his body was cremated and his ashes were deposited in a pre-Columbian vase that remains in the Casa Azul of Coyoacán, where he had lived most of his life and which today houses the Frida Kahlo Museum.
The blue House
The Blue House currently houses the Frida Kahlo Museum.
In the famous Blue House in Coyoacán (Mexico City), on the corner of London and Allende streetsFrida Kahlo was born, grew up and created part of her great artistic work.
Diego Rivera also lived in this house when they were married and It was visited by various artists and intellectuals. In turn, refugee communist militants were housed there, including Leon Trotsky and his wife.
After Frida’s death, the Blue House and Its gardens became home to the Frida Kahlo Museumopened on July 12, 1958. It currently exhibits paintings and personal objects of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, as well as documents, books, furniture, clothing and pre-Columbian sculptures that were part of the environment in which Frida created her works.
The work of Frida Kahlo
The style of his work
Frida spent several months bedridden and it was then that she began to paint.
Frida Kahlo’s art consisted mostly of paintings that They expressed the sufferings and torments he went through during all his life. She made many self-portraits in which she crudely expressed her personal experiences and also moved away from artistic stereotypes about the feminine, which influenced her image to be recovered by feminist movements after her death.
In his nearly 200 works, in addition to self-portraits He painted still lifes and social and political themesIn them he used to express Mexican folklore because, like many artists and intellectuals in the years following the Mexican Revolution, he was interested in rescuing aspects of Mexican popular art.
He also incorporated into his art Symbolism and images from the recent history of communismwhich had had an international impact after the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 and whose ideology was adopted by Frida.
Frida Kahlo’s style was not easy to define. On one occasion, It was said that his work was surrealist, to which she responded that it couldn’t be because it was about her own real life. She was also linked to primitivism and expressionism.
Among his most recognized works are Self-portrait in velvet suit (1926), Henry Ford Hospital (1932), The Frame (1938), The two Fridas (1939), The broken Column (1944), Moses (1945), The wounded deer (1946), and Diego and I (1949).
Your choice of colors
In her works, Frida used bright, vibrant colors that characterized his style. According to the artist, the colors she used had meanings such as the following:
- Warm and good light.
- Blood (the red colour in her paintings and in some of her frames perhaps symbolised the blood shed throughout her own life: in the accident, the surgical operations and the abortions).
- Madness, fear, illness, mystery.
- Love, purity, electricity, distance and tenderness.
The exhibition of his works
In her only solo exhibition in Mexico, Frida was in very poor health.
Frida Kahlo’s first solo exhibition took place in November 1938 at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York. His work had been promoted by the surrealist writer André Breton, who had traveled to Mexico and had been impressed by his work. In 1939 he exhibited in Paris, and the Louvre Museum acquired his work “The Frame” (The Frame). In later years he exhibited in other cities, especially in the United States.
Frida He held a single solo exhibition in his native country. On the day of the inauguration, April 13, 1953, her health was so compromised that her doctor forbade her to get out of bed. However, Frida decided to travel by ambulance to the gallery and participated in the event lying in a hospital bed.
After his death, and especially from the 1970s onwards, his work acquired great recognition and His paintings were exhibited in various galleries and museums around the world..
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