Frida Kahlo
- One of Mexico’s most famous artists
- Born July 6, 1907 in Mexico City, Mexico
- Her father was a German Jew who 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
- 1922 bus the tragic accident happened. The bus she was on, collided with a streetcar and Frida Kahlo was seriously injured. A steel handrail impaled her through the hip. Her spine and pelvis are fractured. She had to wear full-body cast for three months.
- To kill the time and alleviate the pain, she started painting
- “I paint myself because I am often alone and I am the subject I know best”
- She would have over 30 surgies throughout her life
- Frida Kahlo met famous Mexican artist Diego Rivera who encouraged her to keep painting
Diego Rivera Artwork
- 1929 Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera’s married
- There marriage was 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.
- Kahlo and Rivera have been separated a few times but they always went back together
- Frida’s popularity grew. She had exhibitions in New York and Paris, but longed for an exhibition in her own country of Mexico
- Frida’s paintings illustrate intimate self-portraits that revele her pain trauma throughout her life along with a sense of vulnerability.
- Over the years her health condition worsen but she continued to work and paint.
- 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 in a bed the gallery set up for her.
- Frida’s popularity continues to rise to this day.
- You can find more and more items bearing her iconic image
