Prepared by Oksana Banit, 11-A
Frida Kahlo
When Frida Kahlo had her first
solo exhibition in Mexico a local critic wrote:
"It is impossible to separate
the life and work of this extraordinary person. Her paintings are her
biography."
- Frida Kahlo was born in Mexico, July 6th, 1907.
She did not originally plan to become an artist.
At the age of 18, she was seriously injured in a bus accident. She spent
over a year in bed recovering from fractures to her spine, collarbone
and ribs.
It was during her months of convalescence that Frida
began to take painting seriously "to combat the boredom and
pain" she said. Frida's father, a professional photographer
by trade, was also an amateur painter. It was he who first sparked Frida's
interest in art. Once when hospitalized she said: "When I get out of here there
are three things that I want to do….paint, paint, and paint."
She endured more than 30 operations in her lifetime that left her scared
both physically and mentally.
- As a result of the bus accident and three miscarriages,
Frida was left childless and often turned to her pets and dolls for
comfort during times of despair and loneliness.
- At 22 she married the famous Mexican muralist Diego
Rivera, 20 years her senior. Their turbulent relationship survived through
the good times, the bad times, through divorce and remarriage, infidelities,
living together and sometimes apart. Probably the one thing that influenced the theme
of Frida's paintings most of all was her own life. Based on real life
events, she painted the biography of her life. Many of Frida's paintings,
especially the self-portraits, capture her own personal emotions and
feelings about an event or crisis in her life: her physical condition,
her inability to have children, her philosophy of nature and life and
most of all her relationship with Diego. Unfortunately most of those "life events"
were tragic and unpleasant events and many of them related to Diego's
infidelity.
- Frida once said: "I suffered two grave accidents
in my life…One in which a streetcar knocked
me down and the other was Diego."
- At the time of her exhibition opening, Frida's health
was such that her Doctor told her that she was not to leave her bed.
She insisted that she was going to attend her opening, and, in Frida
style, she did. She was placed in her bed and four men carried her in
to the waiting guests.
- One dramatic self-portrait that should be included in her "life events" series
is the 1939 painting "The Two Fridas".
This painting is a classic example of how she expressed
her emotions towards Diego on canvas. This double self-portrait of two
different Fridas was painted just after Diego and Frida divorced. The
Frida on the right is the Frida that Diego once loved while the other
Frida is the Frida that Diego betrayed and rejected.
- During her lifetime, Frida created some 200 paintings,
drawings and sketches related to her experiences in life, physical and
emotional pain and her turbulent relationship with Diego. She produced
143 paintings, 55 of which are self-portraits. When asked why she painted
so many self-portraits, Frida replied: "Because I am so often alone....because
I am the subject I know best."
- Once French poet and Surrealist André Breton visited Mexico. When he saw Kahlo's unfinished painting "What the Water
Gave Me", he immediately labeled her an innate "Surrealist",
and offered to show her work in Paris. Frida never considered herself to be a "Surrealist" and, in fact, rejected
that label. "They thought I was a Surrealist,"
she said, "… but I wasn't. I never painted
dreams…I painted my own reality".
- She was politically active, but not always "politically
correct", and in the end devoted her painting to her political
convictions. Both Frida and Diego were very active in the Communist Party in Mexico.
- In 1951, after some 30 operations, Frida was left
broken mentally and in severe physical pain. She was only able to endure
by taking painkillers and even then some days was not able to paint at all. As time passed, the pain
increased and so did the dosage of painkillers…sometimes taken with alcohol. As a result, the heavy
use of drugs greatly influenced the quality of her paintings. In 1954,
just before her death, a friend remarked that Frida tried to paint a
small painting for him but it never got further than a few dabs of paint.
- On July 13th, 1954, at the age of 47, Frida passed
away.
Once when asked what to do with her body when she
dies, Frida replied: "Burn it…I don't want to
be buried. I have spent too much time lying down…