Frida Kahlo’s body of work – made up primarily by self-portraits – is raw. It is pure. Unfiltered. Honest. And disturbing.
The surrealists considered her one of their own, but Kahlo was quick to reject the label.
“I don’t paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own reality.”
LIFE IN THE BLUE HOUSE
Kahlo’s life began in the same place it ended: La Casa Azul, The Blue House in Coyoacán, Mexico City. She was close with her father throughout her life, but her mother was domineering and pessimistic.
Though she was born in 1907, Kahlo would go on to tell people she was born in 1910 to closer associate herself with the modern Mexico that was established after the Mexican Revolution in that same year.
At the age of six she contracted polio, the first of many afflictions she would suffer with throughout her life. She was bedridden for nine months. Though the disease left her legs disproportionate, Kahlo went on to engage in many sports in her youth, many of which were considered ‘male-only’, at the insistence of her father.
At 15, she enrolled in the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria, one of Mexico’s most renowned preparatory schools. Kahlo was one of only thirty-five girls at the school, and her interest lay predominantly in the field of medicine, an industry dominated by men. There, she first met muralist Diego Rivera, a famed muralist who was working on a project called The Creation in the school’s lecture hall. She was enamoured by Rivera, but was in the midst of a relationship with Alejandro Gómez Arias, the leader of a politically and intellectually like-minded gang that Kahlo had joined.
CATASTROPHE AND RECOVERY
In 1925, Kahlo and Arias were travelling in a bus that collided with a tram. She was greatly injured, suffering a broken spine, collarbone, ribs, pelvis, and leg. Worse, a steel handrail had punctured her abdomen and uterus, making childbearing all but impossible. She reacted to the news by producing a birth certificate for a fake child named Leonardo, and claimed to be his mother.
Kahlo spent the next three months in a full-body cast, and would require 35 further surgeries throughout her lifetime to allow her to keep mobile.
When she had recovered enough to return home, Kahlo spent her time painting to take her mind off the incredible pain that would torment her for the rest of her life, and inspire some of her most memorable work. Her mother had a special easel built so that Kahlo could paint from her bed, and her father gave her a range of oil paint and brushes.
The following year, she completed her first self-portrait: Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress. She gifted it to Arias, who had left her over suspicions of infidelity.
Though the couple did not reunite, the painting marked the start of Kahlo’s illustrious career.
REAL
When finally she was able to return to society, she quickly established herself as a controversial and honest figure. Kahlo joined the Young Communist League where she made friends with whom she would constantly drink. Unafraid of language, she was known to swear profusely, much to the shock of her acquaintances.
Kahlo painted herself as she was. The conjoined eyebrows and slight shadow of hair above her upper-lip – elements through which many recognise a Kahlo self-portrait – defied traditional artistic expectations of beauty and perfection. Today, her honest reflection and acceptance of self have lead Kahlo to become a feminist icon.
Kahlo eventually brought her work to Diego Rivera in order to receive feedback. He encouraged her talent, and they soon became close. In 1929, they married. Kahlo was 22; Rivera was 20 years her senior.
REFLECTION
“I paint myself because I am so often alone, and because I am the subject I know best.”
Of Kahlo’s 143 paintings, 55 are self-portraits.
They start out simply: Time Flies depicts Kahlo in traditional Mexican garb, a favourite of her husband’s. It sold in 2000 for $5 million, making Kahlo the highest-selling Latin American artist in history.
From there, Kahlo’s style is more defined, and presents the kind of painful authenticity for which she is known best. Self Portrait with Necklace of Thorns was painted in 1940, after Kahlo and Rivera temporarily divorced. The piece is blasphemous – Christ’s crown of thorns lays unravelled around Kahlo’s neck as a symbol of her pain – and hopelessly claustrophobic. A black cat – the symbol of bad luck – poses over one of her Kahlo’s shoulders, while her pet monkey – a gift from Rivera, and a Mexican symbol of death – sits on her right. A large wall of leaves fills the background.
It is a haunting reflection of a tumultuous relationship plagued with arguments and affairs committed by both parties. Kahlo said “There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the train the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst”, though the two would reconcile within the year.
Of course, portraits aren’t the only pieces that Kahlo created. Amongst her best known works are Fruits of the Earth, a less-than-subtle representation of her fierce sexual appetite, and Henry Ford Hospital, which depicts a scene of Kahlo suffering through one of her three miscarriages.
As of 1931, when Kahlo’s work was first shown in public, her reputation as a great artist spread throughout the world. In 1938, she travelled to New York for her first solo exhibition, she received a rock star’s reception. The next year, she went to Paris, and her self-portrait The Frame was purchased for The Louvre.
Kahlo returned to Mexico, and her father died soon after. She fell into depression, exacerbating her illness. Between spinal taps and long hospital stays, she begins to teach at La Esmeralda, the Education Ministry’s School of Painting and Sculpture.
DECLINE
Soon, the pain started to take hold unlike ever before.
In 1950, Kahlo underwent seven operations on her spine over nine months. She turned to drinking to distract her mind.
“I tried to drown my sorrows but the bastards learned how to swim.”
Two years later, her right lower-leg was amputated due to gangrene, and she developed a case of bronchopneumonia which left her weak. She became addicted to morphine, and suffered from extreme anxiety attacks. Fortunately, Rivera was there to support her.
Kahlo spent her last years mostly painting still life images. Her addiction left her unable to manipulate the paintbrush as she once did.
A week after her 47th birthday, Frida Kahlo died from a pulmonary embolism, which many believe was brought on by an overdose, intentional or otherwise.
Her remains were placed in The Blue House, which was turned into the Frida Kahlo Museum in the late-1950s, and remains as one of Mexico’s most frequented museums to this day.
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As popular as she was during her lifetime, Kahlo is even more-so today thanks to numerous exhibitions, films, and orchestras produced in her honour.
In 2006, she broke her own record as the highest-selling Latin American artists when Roots was purchased for $5.6 million.
Though she remained mostly isolated and inflicted by terrible illness, Kahlo always stayed true to herself and her reality. She is a symbol of pride, determination, and authentic beauty, or, as surrealist André Breton put it, “a ribbon around a bomb”.