Kahlo
Behind Frida Kahlo’s portraits, lies the story of both her life and work. It is precisely this combination that draws the reader in. Frida’s work is a record of her life, and rarely can we learn so much about an artist from what she records inside the picture frame. Frida Kahlo truly is Mexico’s gift to the history of art. She was just eighteen years old when a terrible bus accident changed her life forever, leaving her handicapped and burdened with constant physical pain. But her explosive character, raw determination and hard work helped to shape her artistic talent. And although he was an obsessive womanizer, the great painter Diego Rivera was by her side. She won him over with her charm, talent and intelligence, and Kahlo learnt to lean on the success of her companion in order to explore the world, thus creating her own legacy whilst finding herself surrounded by a close-knit group of friends. Her personal life was turbulent, as she frequently left her relationship with Diego to one side whilst she cultivated her own bisexual relationships. Despite this, Frida and Diego managed to save their frayed relationship. The story and the paintings that Frida left us display a courageous account of a woman constantly on a search of self discovery.
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Biography
1907: Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo is born July 6, in la Casa Azul in Coyoacán, Mexico, daughter of a German, Wilheim Kahlo, and Mathilde Calderón.
1910: Beginning of the Mexican revolution which overthrows Porfirio Diaz. Kahlo adopted this year as that of her birthday, in line with a new Mexico. Considered an accessory by her father who thought of her as a substitute for a son, she became his assistant in his photograph studio.
1916: Polio leaves her right leg handicapped.
1921: The Mexican government orders a large mural from Diego Rivera – returned to the country after fourteen years spent in Europe – to be sent to the National Preparatory School.
1923: Frida Kahlo enters the National Preparatory School, reserved for the Mexican elite. She is one of thirty-five girls in an enrollment of two thousand pupils. She secretly admires Diego Rivera’s painting La Création.
1925: Frida Kahlo suffers a very serious accident. The bus carrying her is involved in a collision with a tramway. She suffers numerous fractures and internal lesions. She must remain confined to her bed, and begins to paint. Through painting, she expresses the struggle of her existence.
1928: Frida becomes a member of the Mexican Communist Party. She meets Diego Rivera.
1929: Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera marry August 21.
1930: Frida Kahlo has a miscarriage in Detroit where Diego Rivera is making a fresco for the Institute of Art before working at the Rockfeller Center in New York. In September, her mother dies.
1934: The couple returns to Mexico. Diego begins his relationship with Cristina, Frida’s sister. Tired of her husband’s attitude, Frida Kahlo moves out and takes Isamu Nogushi as a lover.
1937: Trotsky and his wife take refuge in Mexico and are welcomed at the Casa Azul. The Russian revolutionary has an affair with Frida Kahlo.
1938: André Breton comes to Mexico. The three couples have long discussions about politics and culture. Frida Kahlo has her first exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York: she is able to begin to sell her paintings. She enters into an affair with the photographer Nickolas Muray.
1939: The surrealists dedicate an exposition to her. Diego and Frida divorce in November.
Self-Portrait with Necklace, 1933
Oil on metal, 34.5 × 29.5 cm
Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection, Mexico City
1940: Frida undergoes medical treatment in San Francisco with the help of Dr Eloesser. In August, Diego and Frida remarry.
1941: Her father dies. The couple move into Casa Azul.
1943: Frida becomes a professor at the “Esmeralda” art school. She soon teaches at her home due to health problems.
1946: She receives the national painting prize for her Moses.
1950: Her health worsens. She is subjected to nine operations for the spine.
1953: For the first time in Mexico, an exhibition is dedicated to her courtesy of Cola Alvarez Bravo.
1954: She participates for the last time in a demonstration for peace in Guatemala. Frida Kahlo dies july 13.
1959: After the death of Diego Rivera in 1957, and conforming to his wishes, the Frida Kahlo Museum opens in Casa Azul.
The painter and the person are one and inseparable and yet she wore many masks. With intimates, Frida dominated any room with her witty, brash commentary, her singular identification with the peasants of Mexico and yet her distance from them, her taunting of the Europeans and their posturing beneath banners: Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, Expressionists, Surrealists, Social Realists, etc. in search of money and rich patrons, or a seat in the academies.
Frida Kahlo at the age of 18
1926
Photograph of Guillermo Kahlo
And yet, as her work matured, she desired recognition for herself and those paintings once given away as keepsakes. What had begun as a pastime quickly usurped her life.
Her internal life caromed between exuberance and despair as she battled almost constant pain from injuries to her spine, back, right foot, right leg, fungal diseases, many abortions, viruses and the continuing experimental ministrations of her doctors.
Self-Portrait with Velvet Dress
1926
Oil on canvas, 79.7 × 60 cm
Bequest of Alejandro Gómez Arias
The singular consistent joy in her life was Diego Rivera, her husband. She endured his infidelities and countered with affairs of her own on three continents, consorting with both strong men and desirable women. But in the end, Diego and Frida always came back to each other.
The Accident
1926
Crayon on paper, 20 × 27 cm
Coronel Collection, Cuernavaca, Morelos
Diego stood by her at the end, as did a Mexico slow to realise the value of its treasure. Denied singular recognition by her native land until the last years of her life, Frida Kahlo’s only one-person show in Mexico opened where her life began.
Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderon was born on July 6, 1907 in Coyoacan, Mexico.
