Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter who lived a relatively short and painful life. Her legacy has been described as, “A triumph of spirit in the face of adversity.” When she died she left behind around one hundred fifty paintings that helped change the way female artists were perceived by critics and the public at the time. Frida Kahlo mixed the styles of indigenous Mexican art, realism, symbolism and surrealism to create her unique masterpieces. The effects of her turbulent childhood on her artwork, her atypical relationship with fellow artist Diego Rivera, and her vivid and often shocking painting style paved the path for her to become one of Mexico’s most famous artists.
On July 6, 1907 Magdalen Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderon was born as the third child of Matilde Calderon and Guillermo Kahlo. Guillermo Kahlo was a photographer who had immigrated to Mexico from Germany. Mexico is where he met and married Matilde Calderon. It is noted that when Frida was a young girl she was very close to her father and that they often took walks together in their hometown, Coyoacan (Jones 19).
Frida’s love for her family is often depicted in her several family portraits. Frida developed a nurturing characteristic when she was young due to the fact that her father suffered from epilepsy. She educated herself about how to help him regain consciousness whenever he would have a seizure. Despite her innocent childhood Frida was somewhat of a rebellious adolescent. Her devoutly Catholic mother expected her to marry young and create a large family. Frida objected to this and persuaded her parents to allow her to attend the National Preparatory School in Mexico City when she was fifteen.
The Essay on Frida Kahlo 5
Frida Kahlo Contents Introduction 2 Childhood 2 Education 3 Love and Family Life 3 Life as a Painter 3 Conclusion 4 References 4 Frida Kahlo Introduction Frida Kahlo, one of the all-time-great painters in the world, was born on July 6, 1907 in a small town at the outskirt of Mexico City. By the time she was 19, she has matured into an outstanding painter performing all kinds of magic on the canvas ...
The National Preparatory School gave Frida the opportunities that she could not have fathomed if she remained at home and followed the lifestyle of her sisters and mother. At school she revealed her eccentric personality. She even became a member of a gang, Las Cachuchas, which was known for its pranks and clever members. Frida also decided at school that she wanted to pursue a career in the medical field. On September 17, 1925 Frida Kahlo and her boyfriend, Alejandro Arias, were taking a bus back to Coyoacan after a day of shopping. The bus they were riding collided with a trolley car. Frida’s body was mangled in the accident. Her injuries may have been worse because she had polio when she was younger. The handrail of the bus completely pierced her body. She had many fractures in her pelvis, spine, and left leg. Her collarbone and two of her ribs were broken, and her right foot was crushed. The handrail did enough damage to her uterus to severely handicap her reproductive ability.
One year after Frida Kahlo’s crippling accident she painted her first self portrait. She gave up her aspirations of medical school after the crash. She studied art and also took interest in politics. She joined the Young Communist League and the Mexican Communist Party. During this time befriended her future husband, Diego Rivera (Jones 35).
Diego Rivera was also a painter who was known for his murals. Kahlo and Rivera had already met when he was painting a mural for The National Preparatory School which Frida attended. At the time Kahlo was fifteen and Rivera was thirty-six. Years later they formed a relationship. He encouraged her artwork, and the couple married the next year on August 21, 1929. Diego and Frida had a rocky marriage. They had separate, but adjoining homes and studios in San Angel, Mexico. Diego was unfaithful and pursued actresses Paulette Goddard, Maria Felix, and Dolores del Rio. He also had an affair with Frida’s sister Cristina. Frida was quite aware of her husband’s infidelities. She once remarked, “Being the wife of Diego is the most marvelous thing in the world…I let him play matrimony with other women. Diego is not anybody’s husband and never will be, but he is a great comrade.” Kahlo responded to Diego’s affairs by having some of her own with both men and women. She has been linked to the sculptor Isamu Noguchi and Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky. Kahlo and Diego separated in 1935. Unexpectedly Kahlo and Rivera were not divorced for a long time. They re-married in 1940 even though the couple continued to lead largely separate lives. Despite the fact Rivera and Kahlo had a tumultuous marriage, they remained civil and business partners throughout their careers. (Jones 40-43)
The Essay on Frida Kahlo Painting And As It Were She Wore Her Heart
... in traditional Mexican Indian culture. Frida Kahlo and her husband Diego Rivera went to the United States when Diego Rivera became tired of being hounded ... images of death, and suffering. PIC This tragedy inspired Frida's first painting. This retablo, or votive offering, was Khalo's first ... children. At first, her dream was to attend medical school and become a famous doctor. However, on September 17, ...
Frida Kahlo’s paintings combined the styles of realism, symbolism, and surrealism with traditional Mexican folklore. Frida painted her portraits of celebrities, friends, and family with very realistic details; however, she added many surrealistic elements in her other paintings. Surrealism shows things and situations that could not exist in today’s world, and these works are usually derived from the human subconscious (Voorhies).
In her painting, Roots, she draws herself laying on the ground with large stems coming out of her body and flowing into the earth. She also used symbolism in her paintings. In Frida’s still-life fruit paintings, the fruit represent growth, fertility, and the cycle of life. Frida also depicts some of her personal troubles in her paintings. In 1932 Frida, after about three months of pregnancy, had a miscarriage. In her depression she painted Henry Ford Hospital. It shows a bleeding Frida lying naked on a hospital bed weeping about the loss of her child (Herrera 70).
Many Frida’s paintings contain some form of thought provoking and provocative subject matter.
Around 1950 Frida Kahlo’s health problems caught up with her. She had suffered through thirty operations and had spent the majority of her life in constant pain. In 1953 she contracted gangrene and had to have part of her right leg removed. Despite this, she continued to paint until her death on July 13, 1954. Like many artists Frida Kahlo was more revered in death than in life. In 1991 one of Kahlo’s paintings was sold at auction for $1.65 million (Jones 92).
Frida Kahlo’s work was completely original. The combination of her mixed heritage, her painful adolescent, and her anomalous relationship with artist Diego Rivera propelled Kahlo to create some of the most remarkable paintings ever from a female, Mexican artist.
The Term Paper on Frida Kahlo 4
Three years after Kahlo's birth the Mexican Revolution began. This was a major event in Mexican history as well as an influence on much of Kahlo's art. She was a surrealist painter which means that she expressed her deepest feelings and thoughts through her paintings. The public viewed her as a high spirited yet rebellious woman who liked to paint what she knew. Her daily life was reflected into ...
Works Cited
“Frida Kahlo : Biography (1907 – 1954).” Lenin Imports. Web. 01 Mar. 2010.
“Frida Kahlo – Biography.” Biography.com. Web. 28 Feb. 2010.
“Frida Kahlo, Mexican Painter.” Fridakahlo.com. 1998. Web. 01 Mar. 2010.
“Frida Kahlo.” Scene4 Magazine – Arts and Media. Web. 28 Feb. 2010.
Herrera, Hayden. Frida Kahlo: the paintings. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1991.
Jones, Jane Anderson. Frida Kahlo. Vero Beach, Fla: Rourke, 1993.
Kahlo, Frida. The diary of Frida Kahlo: an intimate self-portrait. New York: H.N. Abrams, La Vaca Independiente de C.V., 1995.
Popescu, Roxana. “Brain-Juice | Biography of Frida Kahlo.” Brain-Juice.com, Inc. Web. 01 Mar. 2010.
Tibol, Raquel. Frida Kahlo: An Open Life. New York: University of New Mexico, 1999.
Voorhies, James. “Surrealism.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: metmuseum.org. Web. 01 Mar. 2010.
