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Guide To Art History
Famous ArtistsArt Styles and PeriodsArt MediumsAncient Art
Introduction to the Artist Frida Kahlo (19071954) By ArtHistory.net
Circumstance and irony would lead a young girl who once suffered from polio to becomeone of Mexico’s most illustrious artists and famous women. Born in 1907 on the outskirtsof Mexico City, Frida Kahlo has frequently been associated with the surrealistmovement, but her art is equally a reflection of her homeland. The folk art of Mexicoinspired Kahlo’s work and it was her unique style that led to her worldside fame.
As a young girl Frida suffered from a weak leg, an effect of polio. Her slight handicapinduced her parents to encourage her to study science and the natural world as shecould not participate in many physical activities. Her use of a cameral and early boutwith photography would eventually have a profound impact on her later art. Frida wasnot an art student when she first met Diego Rivera who visited her high school to paint amural. However, they would later remember an early meeting there.
In 1925 Kahlo was involved in a serious bus accident that would result in lifelong painand many operations. It was this event and its necessary stays in bed that led Kahlo totake up art. While her initial works reveal an influence of great European artists likeBotticelli and Modigliani, her admiration of Rivera and similar nationalist artists as wellas her innate passion for folk art would lead her to become one of Mexico’s mostcelebrated artists.
Early in her development as an artist, Kahlo visited Rivera in his studio. Their mutualadmiration led to a tumultuous marriage with a brief interlude caused by infidelity onboth sides. Rivera, twenty years her senior, had significant influence on Kahlo’sdevelopment, but art historians credit her work as far more personally evocative.Kahlo’s many selfportraits reveal her bouts with physical and emotional pain. Hermarriage, miscarriages, and personal events in her life often appeared in work that alsoreflected her profound preoccupation with Mexican indigenous life.
Kahlo was believed to have many liaisons including one with Russian revolutionary LeonTrotsky. Her association with a famous husband and national and foreign revolutionarieshas made her a legendary figure of her nation. Yet, Mexico and the world know her bestfor her works and singular artistic style. Some of her most famous paintings includeFrida and Diego Rivera (1931), The Two Fridas (1939), and SelfPortrait with CroppedHair (1940). These are just three of the more than forty selfportraits that Kahlopainted.
Official records indicate that a pulmonary embolism was the cause of her death in 1954.Because Kahlo was viewed as the wife of a famous artist, she did not obtain criticalfame in her own right during her lifetime. In fact, critical acclaim would not find herwork until the early eighties when it was rediscovered during Mexico’s Neomexicanismoart movement. Her life was recently depicted in the awardwinning film Frida (2002)that starred Salma Hayek. An extraordinary artist, Kahlo’s work can be found in theworld’s great museums such as Mexico’s Museo Nacional de Arte, New York’s Museum ofModern Art, and Musee National d’Art Moderne in Paris.
See Also: Fridas Fiestas
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