Magdalene Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderon, commonly known as Frida Kahlo, was a Mexican painter whose works were inspired by Mexican folklore, nature, and artifacts. She is regarded as one of Mexico’s finest artists. Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907, in Mexico.
Kahlo was one of the twentieth century’s most interesting portraitists. Her subject was herself, but her personality, travels, hardships, and talent made her more than worthy of her own inspection.
Kahlo’s paintings stand in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and have been shown at Tate Modern in London, but critics like to knock her down a peg. The surrealist movement, to which she was generally linked, allowed many female artists to explore identity and sexuality, but Kahlo was the most strong of them all.
After a life-threatening injury, Kahlo began painting
According to Smithsonian Magazine, she was severely injured in her teens when a bus crashed with a trolley, breaking off a metal handrail and piercing her pelvis. During the accident, her spine, legs, and feet were all shattered.
As a result of the incident, Kahlo suffered from severe pain and spent her entire life wearing a plaster corset. Bedridden and bored, Kahlo turned to watercolor painting to pass the time. According to Frida Kahlo Corporation, her mother had a special easel created for her to paint while resting on her back. Later in life, she painted “The Broken Column,” which featured her plaster corset.
She felt incredibly proud of her Mexican background.
Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907, in Coyoacán, Mexico, to a German father and a woman of Spanish and indigenous heritage. Despite being a “mestiza” (a person of mixed European and indigenous descent), she connected strongly with her indigenous roots and adored the Mexican people. When Kahlo was just three years old, the Mexican Revolution broke out. She grew up during the political turmoil that resulted in the demise of a nearly 30-year dictatorship and the emergence of a constitutional republic.
That chaotic moment helped define Kahlo’s worldview. By the age of 16, she had joined the socialist party’s local chapter. In her 20s, she became a member of the Mexican Communist Party.
She married a renowned Mexican painter
Kahlo met renowned Mexican painter Diego Rivera when she asked him to review her work. Even though Rivera was 20 years her senior, their friendship quickly developed into a love one. They got married in 1929. According to the Frida Kahlo Foundation, their marriages, which they had twice, were marred by fierce tempers and adulterous affairs. Kahlo’s works focused on the ups and downs of their love.
She refused the title of “surrealist.”
Kahlo is well known for her self-portraits, but she painted much more than just that. She addressed still life subjects, such as “Cactus Fruits” and “Window Display in a Street in Detroit”. Kahlo also depicted bizarre and dark settings. “What the Water Gave Me” shows figures and landscapes floating in a bathtub. She frequently took inspiration from unpleasant personal situations, such as her turbulent marriage, miscarriages, and medical treatments. Many of her self-portraits showed physical and psychological traumas, according to the Frida Kahlo Foundation.
She made a political statement through dress
Kahlo purposely combined Western and traditional indigenous attire to make a political statement about cultural identity, nationalism, and feminism. “(Frida Kahlo) developed her distinctive style by combining traditional Mexican and European dress with the basic effects of her disability and political beliefs: Circe Henestrosa, co-curator of the 2018 exhibition “Frida: Making Herself Up” at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, described Kahlo as a bohemian artist, a Tehuana, and a hybrid figure.
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