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 * Home
 * Masterpieces
   * Self Portrait in a Velvet Dress, 1926
   * The Bus, 1929
   * Two Women, 1929
   * Frida and Diego Rivera, 1931
   * My Birth, 1932
   * Self Portrait Along the Boarder Line Between Mexico and the United States
   * Henry Ford Hospital, 1932
   * My Dress Hangs There, 1933
   * A Few Small Nips, 1935
   * My Grandparents My Parents and Me, 1936
   * My Nurse and I, 1937
   * Fulang Chang and I, 1937
   * Four Inhabitants of Mexico, 1938
   * Self-portrait with Monkey, 1938
   * What the Water Gave Me, 1938
   * Two Nudes in a Forest, 1939
   * The Two Fridas, 1939
   * Self Portrait Dedicated to Dr Eloesser, 1940
   * Self Portrait with Monkey, 1940
   * The Wounded Table, 1940
   * Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, 1940
   * Me and My Parrots, 1941
   * Roots, 1943
   * Self Portrait with Monkeys, 1943
   * Self Portrait as a Tehuana, 1943
   * The Broken Column, 1944
   * Without Hope, 1945
   * Moses, 1945
   * The Wounded Deer, 1946
   * Tree of Hope, 1946
   * Self Portrait with Loose Hair, 1947
   * Self Portrait, 1948
   * The Love Embrace of the Universe, 1949
   * Diego and I, 1949
 * Frida Kahlo Voice
 * Timeline
 * Biography
 * Paintings
 * Drawings
 * Diaries
 * Photos
 * Quotes
 * 10 Fun Facts


FRIDA KAHLO BIOGRAPHY

Considered one of Mexico's greatest artists, Frida Kahlo was born on July 6,
1907 in Coyocoan, Mexico City, Mexico. She grew up in the family's home where
was later referred to as the Blue House or Casa Azul. Her father is a German
descendant and photographer. He immigrated to Mexico where he met and married
her mother Matilde. Her mother is half Amerindian and half Spanish. Frida Kahlo
has two older sisters and one younger sister.

Frida Kahlo has poor health in her childhood. She contracted polio at the age of
6 and had to be bedridden for nine months. This disease caused her right leg and
foot to grow much thinner than her left one. She limped after she recovered from
polio. She has been wearing long skirts to cover that for the rest of her life.
Her father encouraged her to do lots of sports to help her recover. She played
soccer, went swimming, and even did wrestle, which is very unusual at that time
for a girl. She has kept a very close relationship with her father for her whole
life.

Frida Kahlo attended the renowned National Preparatory School in Mexico City in
the year of 1922. There are only thirty-five female students enrolled in that
school and she soon became famous for her outspokenness and bravery. At this
school she first met the famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera for the first
time. Rivera at that time was working on a mural called The Creation on the
school campus. Frida often watched it and she told a friend she will marry him
someday.

In the same year, Kahlo joined a gang of students who shared similar political
and intellectual views. She fell in love with the leader Alejandro Gomez Arias.
On a September afternoon when she traveled with Gomez Arias on a bus the tragic
accident happened. The bus collided with a streetcar and Frida Kahlo was
seriously injured. A steel handrail impaled her through the hip. Her spine and
pelvis are fractured and this accident left her in a great deal of pain, both
physically and physiologically.

She was injured so badly and had to stay in the Red Cross Hospital in Mexico
City for several weeks. After that, she returned home for further recovery. She
had to wear full-body cast for three months. To kill the time and alleviate the
pain, she started painting and finished her first self-portrait the following
year. Frida Kahlo once said,



I paint myself because I am often alone and I am the subject I know best".



Her parents encouraged her to paint and made a special easel made for her so she
could paint in bed. They also gave her brushes and boxes of paints.



Frida Kahlo reconnected with Rivera in 1928. She asked him to evaluate her work
and he encouraged her. The two soon started the romantic relationship. Despite
her mother's objection, Frida and Diego Rivera got married in the next year.
During their earlier years as a married couple, Frida had to move a lot based on
Diego's work. In 1930, they lived in San Francisco, California. Then they moved
to New York City for Rivera's artwork show at Museum of Modern Art. They later
moved to Detroit while Diego Rivera worked for Detroit Institute of Arts.

In 1932, Kahlo added more realistic and surrealistic components in her painting
style. In the painting titled Henry Ford Hospital(1932), Frida Kahlo lied on a
hospital bed naked and was surrounded with a few things floating around, which
includes a fetus, a flower, a pelvis, a snail, all connected by veins. This
painting was an expression of her feelings about her second miscarriage. It is
as personal as her other self-portraits.



In 1933, Kahlo was living in New York City with her husband Diego Rivera. Rivera
was commissioned by Nelson Rockefeller to create a mural named as Man at the
Crossroads at Rockefeller Center. Rivera tried to include Vladimir Lenin in the
painting, who is a communist leader. Rockefeller stopped his work and that part
was painted over. The couple had to move back to Mexico after this incident.
They returned and live in San Angel, Mexico.

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera's marriage is not a usual one. They had been
keeping separate homes and studios for all those years. Diego had so many
affairs and one of that was with Kahlo's sister Cristina. Frida Kahlo was so sad
and she cut off her long hair to show her desperation to the betrayal. She has
longed for children but she cannot bear one due to the bus accident. She was
heartbroken when she experienced a second miscarriage in 1934. Kahlo and Rivera
have been separated a few times but they always went back together. In 1937 they
helped Leon Trotsky and his wife Natalia. Leon Trotsky is an exiled communist
and rival of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Kahlo and Rivera welcomed the couple
together and let them stay at her Blue House. Kahlo also had a brief affair with
Leon Trotsky when the couple stayed at her house.

In 1938, Frida Kahlo became a friend of André Breton, who is one of the primary
figures of the Surrealism movement. Frida said she never considered herself as a
Surrealist "until André Breton came to Mexico and told me I was one." She also
wrote, "Really I do not know whether my paintings are surrealist or not, but I
do know that they are the frankest expression of myself". "Since my subjects
have always been my sensations, my states of mind and the profound reactions
that life has been producing in me, I have frequently objectified all this in
figures of myself, which were the most sincere and real thing that I could do in
order to express what I felt inside and outside of myself."

In the same year, she had an exhibition at New York City gallery. She sold some
of her paintings and got two commissions. One of that is from Clare Boothe Luce
to paint her friend Dorothy Hale who committed suicide. She painted The Suicide
of Dorothy Hale (1939), which tells the story of Dorothy's tragic leap. The
patron Luce was horrified and almost destroyed this painting.



The next year, 1939, Kahlo was invited by André Breton and went to Paris. Her
works are exhibited there and she is befriended with artists such as Marc
Chagall, Piet Mondrian, and Pablo Picasso. She and Rivera got divorced that year
and she painted one of her most famous paintings, The Two Fridas(1939).

But soon Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera remarried in 1940. The second marriage is
about the same as the first one. They still keep separate lives and houses. Both
of them had infidelities with other people during the marriage. Kahlo received a
commission from the Mexican government for five portraits of important Mexican
women in 1941, but she was unable to finish the project. She lost her beloved
father that year and continued to suffer from chronic health problems. Despite
her personal challenges, her work continued to grow in popularity and was
included in numerous group shows around this time.



In the year of 1944, Frida Kahlo painted one of her most famous portraits, The
Broken Column. In this painting, she depicted herself naked and split down the
middle. Her spine is shattered like a column. She wears a surgical brace and
there are nails all through her body, which is the indication of the consistent
pain she went through. In this painting, Frida expressed her physical challenges
through her art. During that time, she had a few surgeries and had to wear
special corsets to protect her back spine. She seeks lots of medical treatment
for her chronic pain but nothing really worked.

Her health condition has been worsening in 1950. That year she was diagnosed
with gangrene in her right foot. She became bedridden for the next nine month
and had to stay in hospital and had several surgeries. But with great
persistence, Frida Kahlo continued to work and paint. In the year of 1953, she
had a solo exhibition in Mexican. Although she had limited mobility at that
time, she showed up on the exhibition's opening ceremony. She arrived by
ambulance, and welcomed the attendees, celebrated the ceremony in a bed the
gallery set up for her. A few months later, she had to accept another surgery.
Part of her right leg got amputated to stop the gangrene.

With the poor physical condition, she is also deeply depressed. She even had an
inclination for suicide. Frida Kahlo has been out and in hospital during that
year. But despite her health issues, she has been active with the political
movement. She showed up at the demonstration against US-backed overthrow of
President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala on July 2. This is her last public
appearance. About one week after her 47th birthday, Frida Kahlo passed away at
her beloved Bule House. She was publicly reported to die of a pulmonary
embolism, but there is speculation which was saying she died of a possible
suicide.

Photo of Frida Kahlo Blue House

Frida Kahlo's fame has been growing after her death. Her Blue House was opened
as a museum in the year of 1958. In the 1970s the interest in her work and life
is renewed due to the feminist movement since she was viewed as an icon of
female creativity. In 1983, Hayden Herrera published his book on her, A
Biography of Frida Kahlo, which drew more attention from the public to this
great artist. In the year of 2002, a movie named Frida was released, staring
alma Hayek as Frida Kahlo and Alfred Molina as Diego Rivera. This movie was
nominated for six Academy Awards and won for Best Makeup and Original Score.

THE TWO FRIDAS

SELF-PORTRAIT WITH THORN NECKLACE & HUMMINGBIRD

VIVA LA VIDA, WATERMELONS

THE WOUNDED DEER

SELF PORTRAIT WITH MONKEYS

WITHOUT HOPE

ME AND MY PARROTS

WHAT THE WATER GAVE ME

ROOTS

FRIDA AND DIEGO RIVERA

THE WOUNDED TABLE

DIEGO AND I

MY DRESS HANGS THERE

HENRY FORD HOSPITAL

SELF PORTRAIT AS A TEHUANA

FULANG CHANG AND I

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