Wherever you go, a portrait of Frida Kahlo, Frida figures embroidered on bags and t-shirts, cards with Frida's aphorisms, Frida Kahlo-themed cafes, restaurants, murals decorating the streets; soap bars; posters; and you can see many more…
Her full name is Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón. Frida Kahlo is the child of a Hungarian-German father and a Mexican mother of Spanish and American Indian descent. She was born on July 13, 1954 in Mexico as the third child of the family. Kahlo's father, Wilhelm, was a German photographer who had immigrated to Mexico, where he met and married her mother, Matilde. Throughout her artistic career, Kahlo would explore her identity, often portraying both her European colonial ancestry and her native Mexican ancestry as binary oppositions.
When Frida was six years old, she had an attack of polio, which left her bedridden for nine months. Frida recovered after this process, but this illness left her with a lifelong chronic illness and a limping leg.
Frida was particularly close to her father, who was a professional photographer, and would often help him in his studio. Although she took some drawing classes, Frida was more interested in science and in 1922 she entered the National Preparatory School in Mexico City to study medicine. While there she met Diego Rivera, who was working on a mural for the school's auditorium.
In 1925, Frida was in a bus accident. She nearly died in the accident when an iron handrail pierced her hips and protruded from the other side of her body. She was confined to bed for many years due to multiple fractures to her spine, collarbone and ribs, a shattered pelvis, a broken foot, and a dislocated shoulder. She had to live with casts that covered her body almost completely and with unbearable pain. Due to this accident, she had more than 30 medical operations in her life. While she was trying to recover from a body cast, she focused heavily on painting.
Frida and famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera first met in 1922 when she went to work on a project in high school. Frida visited Diego often during Rivera's process of painting a mural called "The Creation" in the school's lecture hall. Frida, who was highly influenced by Rivera both artistically and emotionally, said to a friend that one day Diego would give birth to her baby, according to rumors.
Frida, who spent years at home and in bed for years due to the bus accident she had afterward, joined the Mexican Communist Party, where she met Diego once again after her convalescence. When she showed him some of her work, Diego encouraged her to continue painting. In 1928, Frida and Diego's romantic relationship began, and Diego broke up with his former wife and married Frida in 1929.
During their first years together, Frida often traveled with Diego. In 1930 they lived in San Francisco, California. They then traveled to New York for Diego's show at the Museum of Modern Art and later settled in Detroit for Diego's commission with the Detroit Institute of Art.
The lives of Frida and Diego in New York in 1933 were filled with controversy. Commissioned by Nelson Rockefeller, Rivera painted a mural entitled 'The Man at the Crossroads' at the RCA Building in Rockefeller Center. Rockefeller stopped work on the project after Diego added a portrait of communist leader Vladimir Lenin to the mural that was to be painted later. Months after this event, the couple returned to Mexico and started living in San Angel, Mexico.
Never living in a traditional union, Frida and Diego kept adjoining houses and studios in San Angel. Diego was a flirtatious man and had many unfaithfulness throughout their marriage. However, the one that affected Frida the most was Frida's relationship with her younger sister, Cristina. Frida was so in love with Diego that she could not leave Diego even though all these things upset her very much. But in response to this familial betrayal, Frida cut off most of her trademark long black hair. Another situation that hurt her deeply was not being able to have a child. Frida, who wanted Diego to have a child, had multiple pregnancies that resulted in miscarriages.
During this tumultuous relationship, Frida and Diego went through a period of separation, but reunited to help exiled Soviet communist Leon Trotsky and his wife Natalya in 1937. Having received asylum in Mexico, the Trotskys came to stay with them in the Blue House, Frida's childhood home, in 1937. Trotsky, once an opponent of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, feared that he would be killed by his old enemy. It was also rumored that Frida and Trotsky had a brief affair during this time.
Frida divorced Diego in 1939. They remarried in 1940. The couple continued to lead largely separate lives, and although they remained married until their death, they both had other relationships over the years.
Art Life of Frida Kahlo
Life experience was a common theme in Frida's nearly 200 paintings, sketches, and drawings. Her physical and emotional pain and her turbulent relationship with her twice-married husband and artist friend Diego Rivera were sharply depicted on her canvases. 55 of 143 paintings were self-portraits of her. Frida's first self-portrait was 'Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress' which she painted in 1926.
Frida participated in the "International Surrealism Exhibition" at Mexicano Galeria de Arte in 1940. There she exhibited her two biggest paintings, Two Fridas and Wounded Table. Although the surrealist Andrew Breton considered Frida a surrealist, this was a label she rejected, saying that she portrayed reality.
In 1945, Frida painted Moses when Don Jose Domingo Lavin asked Frida Kahlo to read Sigmund Freud's book Moses and Monotheism, which is based on psychoanalysis and surrealism, and to paint her interpretation of what she understood from that book. This painting was awarded second prize at the annual art exhibition at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. Frida did not sell many paintings in her lifetime, although she did portraits on commission occasionally.
In 1953, just a year before she passed away at the age of 47, she had only one solo exhibition in Mexico during her lifetime. She was on bed rest at the time, at the doctor's orders, but she wanted to attend her exhibition. She came to the gallery in an ambulance and asked to be brought on a stretcher and moved to a bed where she could enjoy the opening.
A few months after the gallery opened, Frida's health deteriorated further and she eventually had to amputate her right leg at the knee due to gangrene. This made her even more depressed and anxious, and she became dependent on painkillers. She had recently been almost completely bedridden due to bronchopneumonia. But despite this, she gave a speech here, attending a demonstration against the CIA occupation of Guatemala. That night her condition worsened, she had a high fever and was in a lot of pain. She died that night, on July 13, 1954, at the age of 47. Although she was reported to have died of a pulmonary embolism, some rumors suggested that she may have died of suicide or an overdose. A few days before her death, she wrote in her diary: “I hope the debut is fun and I hope I never come back.”
In May 2006, Frida Kahlo's self-portrait sold for $5.62 million at a Sotheby's auction in Roots, New York. It broke the record as the most expensive Latin American piece purchased at auction, making Frida Kahlo one of the most expensive female artists ever.
The artist, who passed away at the very young age of 47, gained immense fame in her short life that went far beyond the borders of Mexico.