Frida Kahlo!

How do you deal with trauma in your life?

If something traumatic were to happen to you, how would you handle it?

– Would you confront the issue?– Would you hide it away?

– Would you trust in someone?– Would you take some kind of action?

Frida KahloPart of many

movements in Mexico where artists rejected

European styles of artwork in favor of

styles that related to the indigenous peoples

of the Americas. Ironically, these styles were not just accepted but adopted by many European painters. Photo by Nickolas Muray, 1941

This had a profound effect on the questions of identity and pain addressed in Kahlo’s paintings.

In fact, it was the amount of time that Kahlo spent bedridden that prompted her to begin painting, as a way of dealing with the trauma from her accident.

As a child, Kahlo had suffered from polio and then survived a serious streetcar accident which injured her spine and other parts of her body.

La Columna

RotaThe Broken Column 1944Oil on canvas

Collection of Dolores Olmedo,Mexico City

La Columna RotaThe Broken Column 1944

This self-portrait is in sharp contrast to Frida's other self-portraits in that she is all alone… no monkeys, no cats, no parrots, and no background of protective leaves and plants. Instead, Frida stands all alone crying on a vast baron plain beneath a stormy sky.

La ColumnaRota

The Broken Column 1944

"You must laugh at life… " Frida said, ”…Look very very closely at my eyes…the pupils are doves of peace. That is my little joke on pain and suffering…"

Mis Padres,Mis Abuelos,

y YoMy Parents, My Grandparents,

and I1936

Frida Kahlo was born in 1907, though she claimed to be born in 1910 in order to connect herself with the date of the Mexican

Revolution, a cause that she felt very passionate about through her life. Her mother was Mexican and her father was

a German immigrant.

When she was a student at the National Preparatory School, Kahlo met her husband Diego Rivera, a famous muralist twenty years her senior.Diego’s artwork was very socially and politically motivated. He was a key part of the Social Realism movement in Mexico. The murals and paintings of Diego Rivera became a great inspiration to her own ideas about art.

The Uprising, Diego Rivera

Self Portrait with DiegoBy Frida Kahlo

Diego and frida

Wedding Day in 1929

On August 21, in a civil ceremony in the town hall of Coyoacán, Kahlo becomes Rivera's third wife. Diego was 42 years old, 6'1" tall, and 300 pounds; Frida was 22, 5'3" tall and only 98 pounds. Frida's mother does not approve of the union saying that Diego is too old and too fat and worse yet he is a Communist and an atheist. Frida's father is less resistant to the marriage. He understands that Diego has the financial means to provide for his daughter's medical needs.

Self-portrait on the Borderline Between

Mexico and the United States

In the 1930’s, Frida and her husband Diego travelled to the United States of America. They lived in New York City for much of this time, and experienced a place and culture very different from their own. While Diego was fascinated by this new place and new opportunities, Frida found the experience to be lackluster. The people were loud, the buildings tall and ostentatious.

Self-portrait on the Borderline Between Mexico and the United States

1932Oil on metal12 1/2" x 13 3/4",

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Manuel Reyero

Self-portrait on the Borderline Between

Mexico and the United States

1932Oil on metal12 1/2" x 13 3/4",

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Manuel Reyero

Lo Que el Agua Me Dio

What the Water Gave Me

1938When André Breton saw Kahlo's unfinished "What the Water Gave Me", the metaphorical self-portrait of what life had given her...floating on the water of her bathtub...he immediately labeled her a "surrealist", and offered to show her work in Paris.

Lo Que el Agua Me DioWhat the Water Gave Me

1938"I never knew I was a surrealist" Frida said, "till Andre Breton came to Mexico and told me I was." In later years in a letter to a friend she wrote: "Some critics have tried to classify me as a Surrealist; but I do not consider myself to be a Surrealist…..Really I do not know whether my paintings are Surrealist or not, but I do know that they are the frankest expression of myself…I detest Surrealism."



1938details



1938details

Frida Kahlo

Self Portrait with Cropped Hair

1940

Oil on canvas

"Look, if I loved you it was because of your hair. Now that you are without hair, I don't love you anymore."

Frida KahloKahlo painted Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair shortly after she divorced her unfaithful husband, the artist Diego Rivera. As a painter of many self- portraits, she had often shown herself wearing a Mexican woman's traditional dresses and flowing hair; now, in renunciation of Rivera, she painted herself short haired and in a man's shirt, shoes, and oversized suit (presumably her former husband's).

Henry Ford Hospital 1932Detroit

In March of 1932, the Rivera's move to Philadelphia. In April the couple move to Detroit where Rivera has been awarded another commission from the Ford Motor Company.On July 4th, Frida's second pregnancy ends in a stillborn at Henry Ford Hospital. She spends the next 13 days recovering in the hospital.

Alla Cuelga Mi Vestido

My Dress Hangs There

Oil and collage on masonite18" x 19 ¾"Hoover Gallery,San Francisco, California, 1933

Alla Cuelga Mi Vestido

My Dress Hangs There

Diego and Frida stayed in New York for several months longer, during which time he did a number of other murals. Frida painted the ironic My Dress Hangs There (1933), in which a Tehuantepec costume hangs on a clothesline strung between two classic columns. They support American icons, a white enamel toilet and a gilt athletic trophy.

Unos Cuantos PiquetitosA Few Little Pricks

1935Oil on metal

Unos Cuantos

PiquetitosA Few Little Pricks

1935Oil on metal

Eventually, Frida was reconciled with Cristina and seemed to pardon her as well as Diego. What remained to remind her of her immense grief was a picture she painted in 1935, A Few Small Nips. It was based on a story of a man who murdered his companion by stabbing her repeatedly; when confronted with the horror of what he had done, he excused himself by explaining, "But I only gave her a few small nips."

SKETCH of Unos Cuantos

PiquetitosSketch and Final Painting

In a preliminary sketch for the painting, Frida drew a dove holding a ribbon in its beak bearing a line from a popular song, "My sweetie doesn't love me anymore."

Unos Cuantos

PiquetitosA Few Little Pricks

1935Oil on metal

In the finished painting-a gruesome, blood-soaked scene in a room with pale pink walls - a delicate white dove and a black swallow lyrically suspend a ribbon that says "Unos cuantos piquetitos!" (A few small nips!). Years later, Frida extended the spilled blood depicted in the canvas to the picture's frame.

Do you think the viscera (blood, guts, gore) outweighs the MEANING behind the artwork?

Universe, the Earth (Mexico), Myself, Diego and Señor XólotlOil on canvas1949

The subject of this painting contains many elements derived from ancient Mexican mythology. Frida's inability to bear children led her to adopt a maternal role towards Diego. In the center of the painting, like a Madonna, she holds her husband Diego in a love embrace that illustrates the combining relationship of women and men. Although the woman is the nurturing figure, the man has the third eye of wisdom in his forehead, so they are both dependent on each other.


Embracing the human couple is the Aztec Earth Mother, Cihuacoatl, made from clay and rock. The outermost figure, the Universal Mother, embraces Cituacoatl. In the foreground, the Itzcuintli dog, Senor Xolotl, is more than simply one of the artist's favorite pets: it represents Xolotl, a being in the form of a dog who guards the underworld. In this painting, Frida presents life, death, night, day, moon, sun, man and woman all in a recurring dichotomy which is deeply intertwined and all is held together by two powerful mythological beings.


The 1953 Solo Exhibition

Realizing that Frida was near death, Frida’s friend Lola Alvarez Bravo wanted to honor her during her lifetime with her first solo exhibition in Mexico. Frida was delighted and started designing and creating the invitations herself. Her health actually seemed to improve as she began planning and thinking about the event. Frida's doctor told her she was not well enough to attend the opening and she was not to leave her bed. The day before the exhibition opening, Frida's health took a turn for the worse but Frida was determined to attend the opening.



Her bed was loaded into the back of a truck, driven to the exhibition opening and set up in the center of the gallery. Minutes before the scheduled opening, Frida arrived in an ambulance accompanied by a motorcycle escort. Upon arrival, Frida made her "Grand Entrance"….she was carried into the gallery on a stretcher and placed in her bed. Frida's presence turned the opening into a display of personal sentiment and emotion, rather than an artistic celebration. The exhibit was a great success!

The 1953 Solo ExhibitionThese paintingsI painted with my own handsand they wait on the wallsto appeal to my brothers.

Well, my dear friend:with true friendshipthanks you from the soulFrida Kahlo de Rivera.

Coyoacán, 1953.

Frida Kahlo1907-1954

Education

Frida Kahlo!