Born in 1907, Magdalena Frida Kahlo grew up in Mexico City in a blue house/Casa Azul built by her father. Father Guillermo Kahlo was a German-Jewish photographer and mother, Matilde Calderón, indigenous and Catholic Spanish. At 6 Kahlo contracted polio, rendering her right leg permanently smaller. More than a fashion statement emphasising Mexico, long skirts became Kahlo’s modest uniform. In any case, Frida’s father trained her in his photography studio.
Frida Kahlo painting in bed.
Thread reader
In high school Frida studied biology, anatomy and zoology at one of Mexico City’s best schools, one of only 35 girls. But then a trollley car collided with the bus she was taking home, forever derailing her health. Could she have made a good physician? Instead she became a painter of striking auto-biographical canvases. However some works did look medical eg The Broken Column, 1944.
This Mexican artist produced c200 paintings, mostly self-portraits, depictions of family and friends, and c30 still lifes. Figurative and very personal, her paintings fused folklore and symbolism to illustrate her own experiences.
In 1922 Kahlo started studying at Mexico City’s Escuela Nacional Preparatoria with a focus on sciences and became part of a group of communist activist students. During her years there the big three Mexican artists, including Diego Rivera, all worked on murals at her school. Kahlo met Rivera briefly when he was painting in the school amphitheatre.
In 1925, Kahlo and friend were on a bus that collided with a tram. Some passengers were killed; Kahlo suffered fractures of her spine, right leg, collarbone and pelvis. Hospitalised for ages, Kahlo was fitted with a plaster corset (to wear for the rest of her life). Alas she later had multiple miscarriages and underwent 30+ surgical procedures.
During her long recovery, Kahlo painted using a compact easel and mirror that her mother installed under her 4-poster bed. She began with the most readily available subject: herself, using self-portraits to illustrate her inner world in distinct moments in her life.
This Mexican artist produced c200 paintings, mostly self-portraits, depictions of family and friends, and c30 still lifes. Figurative and very personal, her paintings fused folklore and symbolism to illustrate her own experiences.
In 1922 Kahlo started studying at Mexico City’s Escuela Nacional Preparatoria with a focus on sciences and became part of a group of communist activist students. During her years there the big three Mexican artists, including Diego Rivera, all worked on murals at her school. Kahlo met Rivera briefly when he was painting in the school amphitheatre.
In 1925, Kahlo and friend were on a bus that collided with a tram. Some passengers were killed; Kahlo suffered fractures of her spine, right leg, collarbone and pelvis. Hospitalised for ages, Kahlo was fitted with a plaster corset (to wear for the rest of her life). Alas she later had multiple miscarriages and underwent 30+ surgical procedures.
During her long recovery, Kahlo painted using a compact easel and mirror that her mother installed under her 4-poster bed. She began with the most readily available subject: herself, using self-portraits to illustrate her inner world in distinct moments in her life.
After her recovery Kahlo again met Rivera through an Italian photographer friend, Tina Modotti. Rivera was by then an established artist. 20 years older than Kahlo, they married in Aug 1929, forming an unstable but lasting union. They each had affairs, sometimes with the same people. Kahlo’s liaisons included Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky (who temporarily lived in the Casa Azul) and Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi.
Kahlo and Rivera spent their early married years in US, with a recent book Frida in America (2020) suggesting that Kahlo experienced her creative awakening in New York, Detroit & San Francisco. Her marriage self-portrait, Frida and Diego Rivera (1931) showed her much smaller than Rivera!
Frida and Diego Rivera,
100 cm × 79 cm, 1931
San Francisco Mus of Mod Art
She put forward distinct bohemian and left politics, the image that still makes her a pop culture icon now. A new documentary will premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Kahlo entranced many key C20th photographers, including Julien Levy and Dora Maar, who left images that still fascinate us.
Edward Weston was one of many artists Kahlo befriended while in the US. After arriving in San Francisco she met famous photographer Dorothea Lange, who shared her studio and introduced Kahlo to Dr Leo Eloesser. The doctor diagnosed her injuries and remained a trusted friend.
Rivera was the spouse sought out for mural commissions and other projects, because Kahlo was still emerging as an artist. Some thought she was the better painter, but she never got the credit. A 1933 article in a Detroit newspaper headlined Wife of the Master Mural Painter Gleefully Dabbles in Art, placing Kahlo firmly behind Rivera. Dabbles?
Kahlo’s career changed in 1938 as her work began to gain recognition. She made her first sale that year when actor-collector Edward G Robinson visited Rivera’s studio. Robinson saw Kahlo’s paintings and bought 4 canvases for $200 each. Kahlo was thrilled.
Edward Weston was one of many artists Kahlo befriended while in the US. After arriving in San Francisco she met famous photographer Dorothea Lange, who shared her studio and introduced Kahlo to Dr Leo Eloesser. The doctor diagnosed her injuries and remained a trusted friend.
Rivera was the spouse sought out for mural commissions and other projects, because Kahlo was still emerging as an artist. Some thought she was the better painter, but she never got the credit. A 1933 article in a Detroit newspaper headlined Wife of the Master Mural Painter Gleefully Dabbles in Art, placing Kahlo firmly behind Rivera. Dabbles?
Kahlo’s career changed in 1938 as her work began to gain recognition. She made her first sale that year when actor-collector Edward G Robinson visited Rivera’s studio. Robinson saw Kahlo’s paintings and bought 4 canvases for $200 each. Kahlo was thrilled.
Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas, 1939
The traditional Frida in Tehuana costume has a broken heart,
sitting next to an independent, modern dressed Frida.
Frida Kahlo.org
Some months later Kahlo had her 1st solo show, exhibiting 25 paintings at New York’s Julien Levy Gallery. The Nov opening drew an A-list crowd including Alfred Stieglitz, curator Alfred H Barr, art historian Meyer Schapiro and Georgia O’Keeffe (whom Kahlo befriended in N.Y trip). André Breton, who'd met Kahlo in Mexico, wrote her catalogue essay. Time magazine reviewed the show well!
One work in the exhibition was a self-portrait The Frame (1938), acquired by France and now in The Centre Pompidou. Other Kahlo works got into star collections eg New York’s Museum Modern Art, SFMOMA, Mexico City’s Museo de Arte Moderno and National Museum of Women in the Arts.
When Kahlo returned from France, she found Rivera with another woman. So she left their marital home to go back to the Casa Azul. By late 1939 they agreed to divorce, prompting her large canvas The Two Fridas. When Kahlo’s health suffered post-divorce, Dr Eloesser advised the couple reconcile. They remarried in San Francisco, Dec 1940.
Frida Kahlo, The Broken Column, 1944
Frida Kahlo.org
In Mexico City, Kahlo’s work was shown in group exhibitions in the 1940s, including C20th Portraits at the Museum of Modern Art in 1942 and Exhibition by 31 Women at Peggy Guggenheim’s Art Gallery in 1943. She soon started teaching at Mexico City’s School of Painting & Sculpture, moving classes to the Casa Azul when her health declined.
Her 2nd solo show was in summer 1953 in Mexico City at Lola Álvarez Bravo’s Gallery of Contemporary Art. Now in very poor health, Kahlo was delivered to the opening night festivities on a stretcher and then placed in her bed IN the gallery. So critics tended to react hostilely, as if they resented the atmosphere of awe. The same year, Kahlo’s right leg was amputated and even then, Kahlo remained a dedicated leftist. She did portraits of Marx and Stalin, and attended demonstrations. And she changed her birth to 1910, coinciding with her beloved Mexican Revolution.
Her 2nd solo show was in summer 1953 in Mexico City at Lola Álvarez Bravo’s Gallery of Contemporary Art. Now in very poor health, Kahlo was delivered to the opening night festivities on a stretcher and then placed in her bed IN the gallery. So critics tended to react hostilely, as if they resented the atmosphere of awe. The same year, Kahlo’s right leg was amputated and even then, Kahlo remained a dedicated leftist. She did portraits of Marx and Stalin, and attended demonstrations. And she changed her birth to 1910, coinciding with her beloved Mexican Revolution.
Kahlo was addicted to alcohol and painkillers. So when she died at Casa Azul (47) in 1954, was it pulmonary embolism or suicide? Her casket was installed in Palacio de Bellas Artes. Casa Azul became her house-museum post-death. Now a pilgrimage site, it includes her own folk art, bed and art material, and an easel from Nelson Rockefeller.