(Skip to bullet points (best for students))
Born: 1907
Died: 1954
Summary of Frida Kahlo
Pins on her skin represent her suffering and psychological suffering from her health problems, as a tear signifying her continued struggle. Frida Kahlo’s painting almost always depicts mental anguish as physical agony in an effort to more comprehend suffering. Some male painters have previously spoken about things like death, grief, and the self, but Kahlo was the first female artist to go into such topics. Not only did Kahlo contribute to the artistic language in the same way Rivera did, but she changed it as well. Kahlo was a revolutionary artist who shocked the world with images of her bare insides, and her paintings revealed how we may think and behave in ways that seem strange on the outside, but make sense from the inner. She pulled together themes (ribbons, hair, and pet animals) that she would later use throughout her career and created a fresh, profound method of conveying the complexities of feminine identity. Kahlo’s famous face offers comfort for victims of trauma who look to her as a person worthy of love, and she has an incredible impact that must be considered as well.
For many years, women were told to hide their struggles, which made them more isolated and less understood. Kahlo’s willingness to reveal her suffering and to shed light on the issues enabled other women to follow her lead and work towards solutions. The legacy of Frida Kahlo continues to enrich the lives of women artists who desperately need a role model.
The problem of “What is Woman?” is of interest to many Surrealists, including Kahlo herself. Does the lack of parenthood affect the feminine identity? Her recurrent losses made her wonder. She permanently changes maternal subjectivity’s meaning. Kahlo’s connection to the environment around her is frequently shown through umbilical symbolism (the presence of ribbons serves as a mother’s ribbon).
Although she frequently found herself alone, she compulsively engaged with self-portraiture. Her own exploration was inspired by a thoughtful contemplation on identity. Her position as a wife and as an artist both helped to inform her interest in her Mexican-German heritage.
One may see a wealth of religious symbolism in Kahlo’s artwork. In her sculpture “Diego and Frida”, she plays the Virgin Mary and Virgin of Guadalupe by holding Diego Rivera as the Madonna and also her husband. In a suitably ironic turn, she is made to seem like Christ in the painting. This is a metaphor that says that the artist sees a connection between the two figures, because she looks to identify with Saint Sebastian. She depicts herself as a prophet by placing herself at the head of the table in her Last Supper-style painting. Furthermore, she draws comparisons to the crucifixion with her depiction of the accident that left her impaled on a metal bar, with golden dust all over her as she lay injured on the ground.
Women who tried to describe their intense feelings before Kahlo were seen as crazy or deranged, while males were identified with the melancholic character type. Kahlo shared with the world that melancholy is a gender-neutral word, which she also demonstrated via her gloomy artwork.
Childhood
Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo Calderon was born in Coyoacan, Mexico City, in the La Casa Azul (The Blue House) in 1907. Wilhelm Kahlo was German, and he immigrated to Mexico at a young age, never leaving the country for the remainder of his life. In the Kahlo family, Wilhelm’s mother’s brother owned a photographic company, and Wilhelm later took it over. Matilde Calderon y Gonzalez was a mestiza and reared Frida and her three sisters, who had two more half sisters from her father’s first marriage educated in a convent. Frida also said her upbringing had a negative impact on her relationship with her father. The house La Casa Azul belonged to both the early days of Kahlo’s life and where she lived and worked until her death. The building eventually became the Frida Kahlo Museum.
Beyond her mother’s strictness, religious extremism, and inclination to have tantrums, a variety of other occurrences impacted Kahlo as a kid. Following a lengthy recuperation after contracting polio, Kahlo’s disability—which manifested as a limp after her recovery—made her a social outcast in her elementary school years. Kahlo was brought closer to Wilhelm, who was familiar with Kahlo’s family and was highly knowledgeable in the teachings of philosophers such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, and Arthur Schopenhauer. Wilhelm used his contacts to enrol Kahlo in the German College in Mexico City and introduced her to various thinkers, among them Goethe, Schiller, and Schopenhauer. It appears that Frida’s desire for study inspired her father to send all of her sisters to a convent school and to do something different for her. Thanks to her father, she acknowledged his devotion and thought him sensitive and wise despite a troubled relationship with her mother. Nevertheless, her curiosity was not limited to just one of her origins; instead, she was intrigued by her different European and Mexican ancestry and how this impacted both her outlook on life and her approach to painting.
Kahlo was raped and had to quit her German school because of the horrific incident. The National Preparatory School, which was formerly for boys only, began admitting females in 1922 since the Mexican Revolution had been successful in ending sex discrimination in education. Kahlo was the first 35 females to be accepted, and she started studying medicine, botany, and social sciences (all disciplines that were new to her). She did well in school, got into Mexican culture, and joined the political scene.
Early Life
The Preparatory School Amphitheater in Mexico City, where Diego Rivera (already a famous artist) was painting his famed Creation mural, inspired Frida Kahlo’s interest in art. Kahlo became instantly smitten with Rivera after watching him work, and his creativity would inspire her to experiment with many forms throughout her later career. She had sketching lessons from her father’s friend, Fernando Fernandez, and she got to assist her father in his photographic studio, enjoying it quite a bit. Although she already had her rebellion, Kahlo was later pushed to learn about literature and politics by classmates who introduced her to the “Cachuchas” dissident organisation. Alejandro Gomez Arias, who was also a part of the group, had a long-term relationship with Kahlo in which they loved one other. In 1925, Kahlo was engaged in a terrible bus accident with her friend Alejandro, who escaped uninjured.
Kahlo broke many bones, with the most serious injury being a shattered pelvis, and the rod which was rammed into her womb caused a lot of trauma. Following her month in the hospital with the plaster corset, and then many months at home, she was forced to spend much time without moving. As she recovered, she was inspired to try her hand at small-scale personal portraiture; when the opportunity presented itself, she abandoned medicine because she felt her circumstances forced her to concentrate on art.
During her time at home, Kahlo’s parents helped her by getting her a painting easel and an art kit, and in addition to making her a special wardrobe to support her back, they put up a mirror for her to see herself, because she created paintings of herself when she was unable to paint on an easel. Despite her trauma, Kahlo spent a lot of time dealing with existential issues, such as the belief that she felt that she was dissociated from her identity, had increasing inner thoughts, and was an intimate with death. To help her own early portraits resonate emotionally, she relied upon the sharp visual realism she loved in her father’s photography pictures, which include many of her siblings and school mates. During this time, Kahlo had thoughts of becoming a medical illustrator, believing it would bring together her passions for science and art.
Kahlo recovered enough to leave her bedroom in 1927, which restored her connection to the Cachuchas group, who was more political at this time. To learn about the creative and political environments in Mexico City, she became a member of the PCM and familiarised herself with that party’s cultural and political circles. She had a friendship with two people who influenced her life: Tina Modotti, a photographer, and Julio Antonio Mella, a Cuban revolutionary. While working at Café des Artistes, Frida Kahlo had many connections to important artists in her community. On June 18, 1928, during one of Modotti’s many parties, she was introduced to Diego Rivera, one of Mexico’s most renowned painters and a powerful figure in the PCM. Kahlo also requested that he, within only a few days, make a judgement on her work, after he saw one of her paintings. His shock at her transparency and uniqueness compelled him to promote her artistry. Rivera, while previously married and known to be attracted to women, soon started a relationship with Kahlo and married her in 1929. Kahlo’s mother, who made it clear that she was opposed to the union, described the newlyweds as ‘the elephant and the dove’. Rivera had enough money to assist Kahlo, and her father backed her with no reservations, even if he was displeased to learn Rivera was interested in a relationship with her. In Morelos, a state in Mexico known for its natural beauty, Kahlo completely dedicated herself to painting when she and Diego relocated to Cuernavaca.
Mid Life
After living in Mexico and being interested in safeguarding the resurgence of Mexicanidad in the face of fascism in Europe, Kahlo was inspired to add a more forceful sense of Mexican identity to her artwork. Although a number of significant transformations occurred during Kahlo’s life, such as her name change and her choice to wear traditional Tehuana clothing, the biggest changes were made in response to her wishes to distance herself from her German heritage (the dress from earlier matriarchal times). It was at this point in her life that her depiction of the distinctively female experience became particularly severe and beautiful, as shown by the symbolization and autobiography of Kahlo’s experience as a woman.
Rivera spent most of the 1930s doing murals in San Francisco, Detroit, and New York while Kahlo travelled to those cities with him. The latter painting expressed her observations of how nature and industry competed in two countries, Mexico and the United States. She had previously finished some well-known paintings, including “Frieda and Diego Rivera” in 1931 and “Self-Portrait on the Borderline between Mexico and The United States” in 1932. Kahlo got to know Imogen Cunningham, Ansel Adams, and Edward Weston during this period. In addition, she met Dr. Leo Eloesser, who would serve as her adviser and surgeon until her death.
Rivera and Kahlo returned to Mexico soon after the presentation of a massive mural in New York City (which was also contentious) and that Rivera had created in 1933 for the Rockefeller Center. They just relocated into the expensive San Angel area, where they purchased a new home. The two-part home was connected by a bridge. As their relationship was in turmoil, this setup was quite fitting. Even though Rivera had several affairs before to his relationship with Kahlo, the affair with Kahlo’s sister was far more distressing to Kahlo, since she had physical and emotional health problems while Rivera was seeing other women. As Kahlo began to engage in adulterous relationships at this time, it must have been good to shed her external bandages. The Hungarian photographer Nickolas Muray met her when he was on vacation in Mexico after returning from the United States, shortly after her arrival there. They started a decade-long romance, and Muray is recognised as being the one who recorded Kahlo’s most memorable portraits in his work.
Kahlo had a short romance with Isamu Noguchi, a Japanese-American artist who worked in New York City, when separated from Diego after the affair with her sister and living in her own apartment. Though both had strong social and political awareness, they remained friends until Kahlo’s death.
As her place of choice to gather, La Casa Azul was frequented by many intellectuals, artists, and activists. Kahlo utilised La Casa Azul often, as a centre of interest and engagement for the Fourth International (an international Communist organisation). When the Russian Communist leader Leon Trotsky and his wife, Natalia Sedova, were given refuge in Mexico, she was also willing to allow them use of the home where they might live. Kahlo and Trotsky had a brief love affair in 1937, which was just after they both assisted Trotsky. Trotsky and his wife were forced to stay at the Blue House in Mexico City until mid-1939.
André Breton, the father of Surrealism, found Kahlo’s paintings intriguing when visiting Mexico City in 1938. While there, he asked his friend and art dealer, Julien Levy, to help Kahlo organise her first solo exhibition in New York City. When Kahlo went to the US this time, she went without Rivera, and she created a big media sensation upon arrival. Her “traditional” Mexican outfits, with bright and exciting colours, had everyone visiting her gallery, and her exhibits were successful. An impressive list of attendees included Georgia O’Keeffe, one of the artists in attendance at Kahlo’s reception. Kahlo spent a few months visiting friends in New York in 1939, and then travelled to Paris to show her work with the Surrealists. It was a flop, and she soon became weary of the Surrealists’ excessive intelligence. Kahlo came to New York after spending time in Mexico expecting to reunite with Muray, only to discover that he had found someone else and decided to end their relationship. Rivera asked for a divorce after Kahlo had returned to Mexico City.
Late Life
After her divorce, Kahlo went back to her former home, La Casa Azul. Her paintings became considerably bigger when she started using larger canvases. After Kahlo’s health deteriorated, Rivera and Kahlo renewed their vows and their relationship grew calmer. The afflicted artist frequently wore corsets for spinal support (and to fight back pain), in addition to having an infectious skin disease and contracting syphilis. The death of her father in 1941 increased her sadness and worsened her health. She liked being surrounded by her pets and tended to the garden at La Casa Azul to relax although she couldn’t leave her home frequently.
As Kahlo’s work gained attention and renown in the 1940s, it was shown in many exhibitions in both the US and Mexico, as well as making a name for itself in art exhibits internationally. Her work was shown at Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of This Century Gallery in New York in 1943, which featured the work of other women artists. While working as a teacher at La Esmeralda in Mexico City, Kahlo painted several large-scale murals for her enthusiastic pupils. She couldn’t live by her work, and when she refused to pander to her customers’ desires, they lost interest. But fortunately, she was rewarded with a major national award for Moses (1945), and she sold The Two Fridas (1947) to the Museo de Arte Moderno. The artist became increasingly sicker at the same time. Even after having surgery that attempted to straighten her spine, it failed, and she often used a wheelchair from 1950 onwards.
Although she continued to paint often while also being politically active, she used her latter years to oppose the nuclear testing done by Western countries. Her first and only solo exhibition in Mexico occurred in 1953 at Lola Alvarez Bravo’s gallery. In an ambulance, they carried her four-poster bed to the ceremony. She was made to lay on her bed, in the middle of the gallery, for the length of the exhibition. In 1954, Kahlo passed away in La Casa Azul. While the death certificate said that a pulmonary embolism was the cause of death, experts have debated whether it was really suicide (intentional or accidental). She was 47 years old when she died.
Kahlo’s artwork has been characterised as Primitivism, Indigenism, Magic Realism, and Surrealism due to her disconnectedness from any creative movements and her reputation as an individualist. Even though Kahlo’s work has only become better after her death, it has inspired feminist and postcolonial discussions as well as becoming a major cultural symbol. Even while some see Kahlo’s art as representing a distinct kind of interwar Latin American artwork, the popularity of her work in the mainstream media has caused many to think of it as representing interwar Latin American artwork as a whole, ignoring the fact that the work is mostly personal in nature. Recent exhibits, such as the one at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Unbound: Contemporary Art After Frida Kahlo (2014), are reexamining the relevance of Frida Kahlo through her contribution to contemporary politics of the body and the role she played in altering the general notion of representation in the arts. The female Surrealists’ enormous impact on the growth and evolution of female art, shown in The White Cube Gallery’s Dreamers Awake (2017), which focuses on only a few of the notable women in that group. The life and work of Kahlo cannot be fully appreciated or belittled. Besides other artists, artists who love art, and others interested in the field, her impact is well-known in many circles that include various professions like design, education, engineering, or medicine. She provides encouragement to those affected by an unexpected tragedy, such as those who suffer from a miscarriage or who have been divorced. Using images, Kahlo described such intense feelings that people had a way to understand and deal with them.
Famous Art by Frida Kahlo
My Birth
1932
This artwork is a little disturbing since the baby and the person who gave birth to it both seem to be dead. The woman’s head is covered in white linen as she delivers the dead baby. It’s very plausible that the veiled figure is Kahlo’s recently deceased mother, while the infant is Kahlo herself (the title supports this reading). Despite this, she also claims to be the “enveloped mother” since she had just miscarried and was known to associate that pain with having a baby. This picture has maternal anguish and suffering overflowing from the Virgin of Sorrows, who hangs over the bed. She also marked many tiny sketches of herself with a few insightful statements in her journal, including the phrase, “the one who gave birth to herself … who wrote the most wonderful poem of her life.” Because of the stress of miscarrying, Kahlo had the energy to create strong art that depicted her pain at losing a child in My Birth.
Thanking the Virgin Mary is a common practice in Mexican votive-style paintings. She seems unable to thank herself for being born, or to show gratitude that she is unable to reproduce. The artwork seems to convey the idea that it is vital to realise that birth and death are intimate companions. Some have said that My Birth, one of Kahlo’s most famous paintings, was inspired by an Aztec sculpture of Tiazolteotl, the Goddess of fertility and midwives, which was shown in Kahlo’s house.
Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird
1940
Kahlo’s intense expression and outward gaze in this self-portrait forces the spectator to connect with her. The artist wears a necklace that holds the unravelling crown of thorns of Christ around her neck. The necklace digs into her neck and represents her identity as a Christian martyr and the painful emotional anguish after her broken marriage. A dead hummingbird—a talisman for finding love in Mexican folklore—dangles from her necklace in the middle. She is shown with a sinister monkey on her right, and a dark cat on her left, an animal traditionally considered ominous. In her bust-length portraits, Kahlo often used flora and fauna in the backdrop to create a small, claustrophobic environment, and by comparing and contrasting feminine fecundity with the barren and deathly imagery of the foreground, she emphasised the connection between the two.
A deceased hummingbird has its connotation changed, and now signifies bad luck. Kahlo, with a penchant for flying, is upset to see that the butterflies in her hair cannot fly very far and the dead bird around her neck has been reduced to an anchor as the local cat feeds on it. The artwork seems to convey the artist’s dissatisfaction since it does not clearly communicate complicated emotions.
The Broken Column
1944
One of the most powerful examples of the two types of suffering that Kahlo experienced was the Broken Column. Herrera, the painter’s biographer, describes the artwork as a “crevice resembling an earthquake fissure” that divides the painter in two. The opening body indicates that surgery was performed, and Frida has come to fear that if she does not wear her steel corset, she would actually fall apart. The metal nails pierced the artist’s flesh, and her disintegrating spine was replaced with a new shattered ionic column. This implanted column’s frigidness brings to mind the steel rod that tore the artist’s uterus and belly apart when she fell from her streetcar. The building’s ruins more broadly allude to the strength and delicacy of the feminine figure. Kahlo’s loincloth, symbolic of the crucifixion, brings forth the image of Christ. Kahlo once again demonstrates her injuries, in the way a Christian martyr would. To portray this message of spiritual suffering, she relies on physical agony, nudity, and sexuality.
BULLET POINTED (SUMMARISED)
Best for Students and a Huge Time Saver
- Pins on her skin represent her suffering and psychological suffering from her health problems, as a tear signifying her continued struggle.
- Frida Kahlo’s painting almost always depicts mental anguish as physical agony in an effort to more comprehend suffering.
- Some male painters have previously spoken about things like death, grief, and the self, but Kahlo was the first female artist to go into such topics.
- Not only did Kahlo contribute to the artistic language in the same way Rivera did, but she changed it as well.
- Kahlo was a revolutionary artist who shocked the world with images of her bare insides, and her paintings revealed how we may think and behave in ways that seem strange on the outside, but make sense from the inner.
- Kahlo’s famous face offers comfort for victims of trauma who look to her as a person worthy of love, and she has an incredible impact that must be considered as well.For many years, women were told to hide their struggles, which made them more isolated and less understood.
- Kahlo’s willingness to reveal her suffering and to shed light on the issues enabled other women to follow her lead and work towards solutions.
- The legacy of Frida Kahlo continues to enrich the lives of women artists who desperately need a role model.
- The problem of “What is Woman?” is of interest to many Surrealists, including Kahlo herself.
- Her position as a wife and as an artist both helped to inform her interest in her Mexican-German heritage.One may see a wealth of religious symbolism in Kahlo’s artwork.
- In her sculpture “Diego and Frida”, she plays the Virgin Mary and Virgin of Guadalupe by holding Diego Rivera as the Madonna and also her husband.
Born: 1907
Died: 1954
Information Citations
En.wikipedia.org, https://en.wikipedia.org/.
