Frida Kahlo

Throughout her life, Frida Kahlo never stopped reinventing herself, drawing inspiration from various artistic movements without ever fully subscribing to them, categorically refusing to be associated with the Surrealists, nor becoming a fully-fledged member of the naive painters either. In her work, she creates a striking contrast between tragic themes, echoing her own pain, and a vibrant, piercing chromatic palette, as a tribute to her native Mexico.

Frida Kahlo was born in the bourgeois neighbourhood of Coyoacán in Mexico. As a gifted pupil with an interest in the natural sciences, she first studied at the prestigious preparatory class of Mexico from 1922 onwards. She was one of the only girls. At the same time, she began to develop an interest in the arts, a love which she inherited from her photographer father. As a teenager, she saw Diego Rivera repainting her school.
On 17 September 1925, when coming home from school, Frida Kahlo was the victim of a bus accident. Paralysed for weeks, her spine was broken and she had to wear a corset. On top of these injuries, she also suffered from the after-effects of childhood polio that had healed poorly.
While bedridden, she began to paint. The self-portrait became her signature: in The Frame (1938) she depicts herself with an object bought at a traditional Mexican market, evoking her love for her country. On this topic, Kahlo declared: "I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best".
She became interested in naive art and created lively compositions, connecting her subjects to natural elements. This can be seen in the 1937 self-portrait with her monkey Fulang-Chang and in still lifes such as Noix de cocos en pleurs (Weeping Coconuts), 1951.
Kahlo met Rivera at a communist meeting. She married him in 1929. They moved to San Francisco. While their experience in America was initially beneficial for Kahlo, given the ties she built with patrons and artists, the artist was highly critical of the country’s capitalist system. She returned to her home country in 1933 and reconnected with the revolution, which impacted her political convictions. She had been following communist principles since 1928, and welcomed Leon Trotsky in 1937 when he was exiled.
In the late 1930s, the relationship between Kahlo and Rivero deteriorated following mutual infidelities, as well as Kahlo’s miscarriages. As with her self-portraits, Kahlo used her preferred medium to evoke the child that did not come (Le Lit volant [Henry Ford Hospital], 1932). The couple divorced in 1938, but reconciled in 1940 and remarried.
In the meantime, Kahlo went to Paris in 1939 to exhibit some of these works, including The Frame. The artist was disappointed by the experience, due to a set-up that was not to her taste and the fact people associated her with the Surrealists. Regarding the label of Surrealist that André Breton wished to give her, she affirmed: "They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn't. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality."
It was also in the late 1930s that recognition arrived for the artist. She taught at La Esmeralda school in Mexico from 1943 onwards. In 1946, another operation left Kahlo with scars on her back. That same year, she depicted herself in a painting heralding her premature death, Le Cerf blessé (The Wounded Deer). The arrows piercing the animal symbolise her pain.
In 1953, the first exhibition devoted to Frida Kahlo opened, but in her fragile state, it was difficult for her to leave the house. She attended the opening in a bed. Some months later, in summer 1953, her right leg was amputated. Her mental health deteriorated, but it was pneumonia that killed her the following year.
Since 1958, Frida Kahlo’s childhood home, the Casa Azul in Mexico, has been open to the general public, allowing visitors to discover the artist’s work.