Frida Kahlo Biography

Frida Kahlo was regarded as one of Mexico's finest painters after she was seriously injured in a bus accident and began painting primarily self-portraits. Later, in 1929, Kahlo became politically active and married a fellow communist artist named Diego Rivera. She exhibited her paintings in Mexico and Paris prior to her death in 1954. This is a simple introduction to the biography of Frida Kahlo.

Frida Kahlo Biography

Let us look at the Frida Kahlo biography in detail.

Family, Education and Early Life:

On July 6, 1907, in Coyoacán, Mexico City, Mexico, Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderón was born.

Wilhelm (also known as Guillermo) Kahlo's father was a German photographer who had emigrated to Mexico, where he met and married her mother, Matilde. Matilde and Adriana were her older sisters, while Cristina, her younger sister, was born the year after Kahlo.

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Frida Kahlo around the age of six, contracted polio, which caused her to be bedridden for nearly nine months. She hobbled as she walked while recovering from the sickness since the disease had badly injured her foot and right leg. To aid with her rehabilitation, her father pushed her to go swimming, play soccer, and even wrestle — all of which were unusual for a girl at the time. Let us know more details of Frida the biography of Frida Kahlo.

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In 1922, Kahlo attended the prestigious National Preparatory School. She was one of the school's female students, and she was renowned for her cheerful attitude and appreciation of traditional, colourful clothing and jewellery.

Kahlo hung around with a group of intellectually and ideologically like-minded classmates in school. Becoming politically more active, Kahlo has joined the Mexican Communist Party and Young Communist League. She had also written a book “Frida Hayden Herrera” which is her biography.

This is the simple Frida Kahlo autobiography, which is also referred to as Frida biography, Frida Kahlo biography book or Hayden Herrera Frida Kahlo.

Frida Kahlo's Accident

On September 17, 1925, Kahlo and Alejandro Gómez Arias, a high school classmate with whom she was romantically connected, were riding in a local bus when it collided with a streetcar. Kahlo was impaled by the steel railing, which entered into her hip and emerged out the other side as a result of the accident. She suffered many serious and severe injuries and, as a result, including fractures in her pelvis and spine.

After spending many weeks in the Red Cross Hospital in Mexico City, Kahlo returned home to continue her recovery. She resumed painting during her recuperation and completed her first self-portrait the following year, which she handed to Gómez Arias.

Frida Kahlo's Marriage to Diego Rivera

In the year 1929, Kahlo married famed Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. Both Kahlo and Rivera first met in the year 1922 when he went to work on a project during her high school. Often, Kahlo watched as Rivera created a mural known as The Creation in the lecture hall of the school. According to rumours, she informed a friend that she would one day have Rivera's child.

In 1928, Kahlo reconnected with Rivera. He encouraged her artwork, and the two began a relationship. When they were first dating, Kahlo would often follow Rivera around depending on where Rivera's commissions were being paid. In the year 1930, they lived in San Francisco - California. Then, they went to New York City for Rivera's show at the Museum of Modern Art and then they moved to Detroit for the commission Rivera with the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Artistic Career of Frida Kahlo

Kahlo befriended Andre Breton, the key figure in the surrealist literary and artistic movement, in 1938, although never considering herself a surrealist. In the same year, she met with a major exhibition at a New York City gallery, selling up to half of the 25 paintings showcasing there. Also, Kahlo received two commissions, including one from the famed magazine editor Clare Boothe Luce, as the show's result.

In the year 1939, Kahlo went to live in Paris for one of the times. She has shown some of her works there and formed contacts with artists such as Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp.

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The above figure was framed by a doorway; Kahlo and Rivera share a closeness moment in the year 1932.

In 1941, the Mexican government commissioned Kahlo to paint five portraits of notable Mexican women, but she was unable to complete the assignment. That year, she lost her loving father and continued to struggle with severe health issues. Despite her personal troubles, her art became increasingly popular, and she was included in a number of group exhibitions during this period.

In Mexico, Kahlo held her first solo exhibition in 1953. Because she was bedridden at the time, Kahlo did not miss the show's debut. Kahlo arrived via ambulance and spent the evening conversing and rejoicing with the event's participants from the luxury of a four-poster bed set up in the gallery just for her.

Following Kahlo's death, the feminist movement of the 1970s reawakened interest in her art and life (life and times of Frida Kahlo), since Kahlo was regarded as a symbol of female creativity by many.

Frida Kahlo's Most Famous Paintings

Many of the works of Kahlo were self-portraits. Some of her most notable paintings can be given as follows:

'Frieda and Diego Rivera' (1931)

Kahlo exhibited this work to the San Francisco Society of Women Artists' Sixth Annual Exhibition, which was held in the city where she and Rivera were living at the time. She holds Rivera's hand lightly in a piece she painted two years after the couple married, while he grasps a palette and paintbrushes with the other, a stiffly formal stance hinting to the couple's future turbulent relationship. Now, the work lives at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

'Henry Ford Hospital' (1932)

Kahlo began using surrealistic and graphic elements into her art around 1932. A nude Kahlo appears on a hospital bed in this artwork, with a variety of objects — a snail, a foetus, a pelvis, a flower, and others — floating around her and attached to her by red and veinlike cords. The piece was extremely personal, as with her earlier self-portraits, conveying the narrative of her unique second miscarriage.

'The Two Fridas' (1939)

The painting depicts two versions of Kahlo sitting side by side, both their hearts exposed. It is one of Kahlo's most well-known paintings. Frida wears virtually all white apparel, has a broken heart, and blood stains on her clothes. The other has a healthy heart and wears brightly coloured clothes. The "unloved" and "loved" versions of Kahlo are thought to be represented by these characters.

'The Broken Column' (1944)

Kahlo has shared her physical challenges through her art once again with this painting, which has depicted nearly a nude Kahlo split down the middle, revealing her spine representing a shattered decorative column. Also, she wears a surgical brace and her skin, which is studded with nails or tacks. Around this particular time, Kahlo had many surgeries and wore special corsets to try to fix her back. She would continue to seek various treatments for her chronic physical pain with little success. 

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Frida Kahlo's Death

On July 13, 1954, a week after her 47th birthday, Kahlo died at her beloved Blue House. There have been several rumours about the circumstances surrounding her death. It was reported that pulmonary embolism was the reason, although there have also been reports of a potential suicide.

The health issues of Kahlo became nearly all-consuming in the year 1950. Kahlo spent 9 months in the hospital after being diagnosed with gangrene in her right foot and underwent many operations throughout that time. Despite her restricted mobility, she continued to paint and promote political causes. In 1953, she had a portion of her right leg amputated to stop the gangrene from spreading.

Kahlo was hospitalised for the second time in April 1954, this time due to her ill health or, according to some sources, a suicide attempt. She was admitted to the hospital two months later with bronchial pneumonia. Kahlo did not allow her physical limitations stand in the way of her political involvement. On July 2, her final public appearance was held as a protest against the US-backed coup of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz.