Frida Kahlo
The Mexican painter Frida Kahlo has been appropriated by a host of ‘isms’- feminism, communism, surrealism. She often cited her year of birth as 1910, the year of the Mexican Revolution (rather than her real birth date of July 6, 1907). Mexico is the subject of many of her works. Kahlo painted numerous self-portraits, incorporating aspects of Mexican folk art, Aztec art and a fantastical interpretation of her reality. Born the daughter of a German photographer and Mexican mother of Indian-Spanish descent, Kahlo contracted polio as a child and suffered serious injuries from a trolley car accident as a teenager. The accident left her bed-ridden at times, in chronic pain, and unable to have a child. Some of her most startling paintings portray visions of suffering, evisceration, and heartbreaking conflict with the physical and natural world. Some of her art is painted on metal panels, recalling votive icons in the Roman Catholic church. When she began painting in earnest, Kahlo approached the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera and they were married in 1929. Both artists were involved in leftist politics and befriended Leon Trotsky who had sought asylum from Stalin’s regime. Kahlo and Rivera’s relationship was volatile; both had extra-marital affairs, had bold personalities, and divorced and remarried within a one year period. Kahlo was included in several important group exhibitions in the United States including “Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art” at the Museum of Modern Art. She has been the subject of major retrospective exhibitions over the past thirty years. Kahlo has become something of a cult figure, in part due to her striking physical appearance, exquisitely constructed clothing and jewelry, as well as biographies and documentaries about her life and work.
