Dreams of
Frida Kahlo

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Frida Kahlo's Life

Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo Calderón



"(la) encarnación de toda la magnificiencia nacional"
(the incarnation of all the national magnificence)

Diego Rivera

Frida Kahlo
(1907-1954)

Frida Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907, to Matilde Calderon and Wilhelm Kahlo in Coyoacan, Mexico. Frida Kahlo's life marked her paintings, which portray her suffering and women concerns in a very frank and straightforward way.

Kahlo enters the "Escuela Nacional Preparatoria" in 1922, were she shows her political concerns.

The 17th of September of 1925 Frida Kahlo suffers an accident, while returning from school her bus crashed. This accident proved vital in the life of the artist.

She suffers severe injuries in her spinal cord which provoked her constant and intense pains in her back and made her unable to have kids. She spends several months in her bed after the accident, these time is used by the artist to initiate her artistic career.

After these period of convalescence the artist sets herself to, in her own words, paint things as she sees them ("...pintando las cosas tal y como yo las veia...").

It was her father who took care of her when, in her childhood, she suffered from polio which led to the deformation of her right leg. Kahlo was often called "Frida la coja" (Frida the crippled) in her childhood.

In 1928, Frida Kahlo becomes member of the mexican communist party (PCM), where she falls in love with Diego Rivera.
The following year, the 21st of August 1929, she marries Rivera in Mexico City. In 1930, Frida Kahlo suffered the first of three abortions.

In 1932, the couple Kahlo-Rivera move to Detroit were she suffers her second abortion at the Henry Ford Hospital, a representation of this incident is shown in the artist painting "Henry Ford Hospital" or "La Cama Volando" (The Bed Flying), 1932.

In 1939 she divorces from Diego Rivera and the 8th of December of 1940 she remarries him. Her health deteriorates and in 1950 her back is operated seven times. After spending nine months in the hospital she returns to her house in a wheel chair. She continues her life as an activist and the 13 of July 1954 she dies at her house in Coyoacan.

Frida Kahlo's feelings for her mother were ambivalent. She describes her both as charming and cruel. In contrast the artist describes her father as "intelligent,polite and of a generous character".

Her father introduced her to art, he was a photographer and often painted the landscapes of Coyoacan.

In 1934 Frida's sister and her husband have an affair, her painting "Unos Cuantos Piquetitos", 1935, depicts her response to this relationship.

In 1938 Kahlo makes her first exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York City.
Frida Kahlo's suffering is reflected in many of her paintings, "El Venado Herido" (The Wounded Deer), 1946 and "La Columna Rota" (The Broken Spinal Cord), 1944 are just two examples. The almost crude way in which she paints is what gives significance and recognition to her work.



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