She paused for a moment in the doorway… This time, there would be no turning back! She left this world peacefully and with dignity, for in her culture, death is seen as an integral part of life. In the end, she likely didn’t have to recall anything particularly significant, as there was no deathbed to speak of, even though she hadn’t gotten out of bed for many, many years. But to hell with sentimentality! Perhaps just a shot of tequila, a cigarette, bright red lipstick, and a shroud made from the flag of the Mexican Communist Party…
It wasn’t just that she lived and created during the post-revolutionary era; she was blessed with the extraordinary fortune of channeling her unique character and talent into surreal, symbolically magical, modern, and cubist narratives with such virtuosity and poignancy that she captivated millions of minds—not only Mexicans who had freed themselves from dictatorship but also free thinkers around the globe. Of course! Fate tested her to the limit, never giving her a chance to recover, throwing harsher quests her way, each time looking back and asking, “Are you still alive?” And with each new suffering, she grew stronger. Not only did she claw her way out of yet another nightmare, but she also wrote, wrote, wrote… A total of 154 paintings that chronicled her life. And with that, she held on to this world and stirred it in ways that felt unreal.
Frida Kahlo at work
A Feminist Who Loved Her People
Frida Kahlo was born in 1907. However, she later changed this date to 1910—the year of the Mexican Revolution. National identity, gender, class, and racial inequality, and creativity as a symbol of Mexican indigenous traditions—these were never, to put it mildly, indifferent to her. She was also deeply engaged with feminism, the Chicano movement, and LGBTQ rights. Yes, she saw herself as part of the struggle against the discrimination of people of Mexican descent in the U.S., which was expressed through music, the plastic arts, cinema, and body art.
Frida Kahlo, 1929
Mexico was experiencing a renaissance, with artists, writers, photographers, and filmmakers flooding into the country from all over the world. Frida was determined that her fellow Mexicans would not be seen as outcasts. She demonstrated this even through her flamboyant appearance, dreaming of Mexican authenticity and clothing adorned with Aztec patterns. Even after her leg was amputated, she, at 43, insisted on wearing a bright red boot in a national style on her prosthetic leg. Frida painted her prosthetic in her own style—just as she did with the leather corsets and orthopedic devices made of plaster that concealed her physical disabilities and on which she painted religious and communist themes. Yes, like her husband Diego, she envisioned her people’s future as communist.
Frida Kahlo in a wheelchair
Ultimately, Mexicans chose their own path, but her people reciprocated Frida’s love; at least her portrait appeared on one of Mexico’s banknotes… Moreover, Frida Kahlo’s works were declared national cultural heritage in Mexico, and their export was prohibited. However, this did not stop the world from being inspired by her paintings, and not for just any price—her painting “Roots” was valued at $7 million at a Sotheby’s auction.
“Roots,” 1943
As for body art: had there been a tattoo trend in those days, Frida Kahlo would have certainly embraced it. But for self-expression, she devised something equally creative: in her self-portraits, she always depicted herself with a unibrow, resembling two outstretched wings of a black bird. In life, she also accentuated it with a black pencil from her favorite brand, Revlon. Nowadays, girls with unconventional thinking choose tattoos featuring old-school themes with Frida Kahlo as a symbol of freedom, authenticity, and boldness of thought.
Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, 1940
What Are Legs When You Have Wings? The Phenomenon of Frida
Frida recalls her childhood in her parents’ “Blue House” in the suburbs of Mexico City, Coyoacán, as rather “sad,” steeped in the atmosphere of her parents’ mutual dislike and their constant illnesses. She was particularly close to her father, who generously shared his love of art, books, photography, nature, and dreams with his eldest daughter. Her relationship with her active, yet harsh and fanatically religious mother was quite strained, as it was with all three daughters and two stepdaughters.
Frida Kahlo (right) with her sisters
But what her mother sincerely shared with her daughter was the incredible, unique beauty and mystique of their Indian-Spanish roots. Fate spared Frida’s life but did not spare her health—at six years old, she contracted a severe form of polio. Instead, fate condemned her to limp from childhood, enduring excruciating pain and the mockery of her peers: “Frida has a wooden leg!” After a bit of sadness, she played soccer, boxed, and swam a lot, even with her bandages.
Thus, Frida grew up to be quite the rebel: she learned to smoke, curse, and get into trouble. Her father constantly tried to help his favorite daughter find her way, sending her to various schools, from which she was expelled for disobedience. At 15, she entered the elite preparatory school “Preparatoria” to study medicine. Here, caught up in the whirlwind of student life with semi-legal gatherings, philosophical clubs, and free-spirited projects, Frida maintained an extravagant and exalted demeanor, masking her physical disabilities with long designer outfits. It was here that she first met her future husband, Diego Rivera. But that was just a fleeting encounter…
…The average artist has one, at most three self-portraits. Frida Kahlo has about 55. And in none of them does she smile. Here she is just born, here she is writhing in the agony of a stillbirth, here she is surrounded by exotic flowers and birds, here she is… with a bare heart. She gazes out from beneath her thick brows, always looking directly into your eyes with her own, as black as the cosmos.
“The Broken Column,” 1944
“I paint self-portraits because I spend a lot of time alone, and because I am the person I know best,” the artist wrote when she was long confined to bed. She was confined to bed due to a horrific accident: the car she was riding in at 18 collided with a streetcar. A metal rod from the streetcar’s pole pierced her abdomen and exited through her groin, shattering her pelvic bone and tearing her uterus. A broken spine and hips, a sick leg fractured in eleven places, thirty-two surgeries… Weeks spent unconscious and then… a return with a mystical thirst for painting.
She asked her father to bring her paints, an easel, and a mirror, which she set up above her head. She looked into it and painted her immortal portraits as a history of her soul. There was even the first pencil sketch titled “The Accident.” It was painting and the support of her loved ones that helped her survive, rise, and even soar. But it seemed that loneliness did not leave Frida even when she stood up, limping catastrophically.
Frida Kahlo painting in bed
The Elephant and the Dove
Frida loved to say that there were two global catastrophes in her life: one involving a streetcar, the other involving her husband Diego. When they got to know each other closely, she was 22, and Diego Rivera was 43. She was delicate, exotically beautiful, and refined. He was rather clumsy, hefty, and frankly not handsome, but probably incredibly charming. At that time, Diego was one of the most famous muralists in Mexico, held communist views, and was madly supportive of his wife’s creativity. He wrote: “Frida is the only artist in the history of art who opened her chest and heart to reveal the biological truth of feelings.”
Frida Kahlo with her husband
But two gifted individuals can always feel cramped under one roof. Frida and Diego separated and reunited repeatedly, loudly arguing and publicly sorting out their relationship. Moreover, Diego’s infidelities piled up one after another… Whether it was talent or charisma, Diego was surprisingly attractive to the opposite sex, periodically throwing him into the arms of new lovers, while Frida welcomed him back into her “mangled” embrace each time, hoping that everything would work out. Her broken body could not carry and give birth to the child she so desperately wanted with the man she loved despite all his betrayals. She lost two pregnancies without giving birth—this is depicted in her painting “Henry Ford Hospital (The Flying Bed)” and the lithograph “Frida and the Miscarriage.”
“Henry Ford Hospital (The Flying Bed),” 1932
All the while, Frida tried at all costs to capture her husband’s attention. She dressed vibrantly and adored changing outfits and accessories, loved bold makeup, and could not imagine her life without flowers on the table and in her accessories. She was passionate, painting a spider monkey (a symbol of passionate desire) beside her, and who knows, had it not been for her disability, she might have been a nymphomaniac. Inside her, a collapse of emotional contradictions was constantly occurring, a strong cocktail of reality and fantasy was brewing. At least, she occasionally sought answers to questions about feminine and masculine essence and vice through Freud and was fascinated by psychoanalysis.
Frida and Diego
She was uniquely beautiful and delicate, but femininity in the classical sense was not her. Frida was one of the first Mexican women to wear pants, curse like a sailor, smoke heavily, enjoy a drink, and not hide her bisexuality. She took great pride in her mustache, which was “not removed” in any self-portrait. She even attempted to betray her husband, whether out of a thirst for revenge or despair. Rumors circulated about her affairs with the Marxist Leon Trotsky, the proletarian poet Mayakovsky, and singer Chavela Vargas. This helped little. The last straw was Diego’s affair with Frida’s younger sister, and she filed for divorce. At that point, something inside her broke—Frida cut her hair, donned a men’s suit, and her paintings became even more tragic and bloody. That was when “Just a Few Scratches!” was born.
Frida Kahlo and Leon Trotsky
Viva La Vida!
Frida Kahlo passed away from acute pneumonia. She awaited her death, but it certainly did not frighten her. About a year prior, she had her first and only lifetime exhibition, where she, already gravely ill and with an amputated leg, greeted guests in the center of the hall… in bed. But with a drink, indecent jokes, and songs. Sorry, that’s just how it is! Diego was once again by her side.
A week before her death, Frida painted a picture: against the backdrop of a piercing blue sky, juicy watermelons, with the inscription on one slice reading Viva La Vida!—”Long live life!” This is how someone who has fulfilled their mission can feel about life and death. And it is no coincidence that the exhibition held in 2018 at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London was titled “Frida Kahlo: Making Her Own Self.” Approximately 6,000 photos, 300 personal items and pieces of clothing, and 12,000 documents that had been locked away in the bathroom of their home for 50 years were displayed for the public, and it took historians four years to sort through them. Diego Rivera outlived his “dove” by just three years.
“Long Live Life, Watermelons,” 1954
Profile
Frida Kahlo de Rivera (Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón) – Mexican painter, writer, and biographer.
Born: July 6, 1907 (Mexico City, Mexico)
Died: July 13, 1954 (Mexico City, Mexico)
Father: Guillermo Kahlo, a German immigrant, professional photographer, and artist
Mother: Matilde Calderón y González, born of an Indian father and a mother of Spanish descent
Husband: Diego Rivera, a world-renowned Mexican muralist and graphic artist. He worked in the state art program of the revolutionary government, creating monumental frescoes in public buildings in Mexico City and the provinces. A communist. He sought himself everywhere: working both in Moscow and the U.S. Such were the times!