The Life and Art of Frida Kahlo: A Tale of Resilience and Creativity

1. Unit 3 - Area of Study 1 Interpreting Art

2. Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) Born: 1907, in the middle class suburb of Coyocan in Mexico City. Father: Guillermo Kahlo (Hungarian/Jewish) – Artist/Photographer. Mother: Matila Calderon (Spanish/Indigenous Indian) – Devout Catholic & housewife. • 3rd of 4 daughters. • Her fathers favourite. • Clashed with her mother and her mother’s strict views/regimes.

3. Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) At the age of 7 developed infant paralysis (polio). -> left her RIGHT leg shorter than her left. Kahlo therefore walked with a pronounced limp. As a result her father spoilt her. • She got to help him take photos and paint, particularly when he suffered epileptic seizures. • He had great plans for her. • Enrolled her at the prestigious El Prepatoria. (High-status school, where only the brightest students gained entry into university courses). • Initially wanted to be a Doctor. • At this school where Kahlo met Alex (Alejandro Gomes Arias) and joined the ‘clique’ he led, consisting of 7 boy and 2 girls. • This group Cachucaswas known for their silly pranks and complete disrespect for the rules. • Kahlo began to wear men’s clothing, cut her hair short and started swearing and smoking. • She first met Diego Rivera at El Prepatoria.

4. Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) Diego Rivera (1886 - 1957) Painter and muralist. • Politics, history, Mexican culture and the workers struggle. Rivera has been commissioned by the Mexican Government to paint a large mural at El Prepatoria. This mural was to glorify the role of the revolutionaries in Mexican History. Mexican Revolution – political, social and military conflict and turmoil that began in 1910.American dictator Porfirio Diaz confiscated large amounts of land from the people of Mexico, which resulted in a Civil War and therefore the creation of the present constitution of Mexico in 1917. (The official end of the Revolution) • Kahlo always admired the values of the revolution with its largely socialist and communist ideas. She changed her birth date to 1910, symbolic of the start of the new Mexico. • When Kahlo and Rivera first met, he was 36 and she was 16. • Rivera is known as a ‘womanizer’ and enjoyed being a ‘party man’. • Kahlo and her Cachuchas group would annoy Rivera while he was painting the mural. They would soap his ladder hoping he or his assistants would fall, they would also burst waterballoon’s on his assistants heads.

5. Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) 1925 When Kahlo was 18 she was involved in a road accident. The bus she was traveling on, collided with a tram. • Section of the bus’s hand rail stabbed Kahlo through her hip and damaged her pelvic region. • Fractured her spine in 3 places. • Fractured pelvis. • Dislocated shoulder. • Broken 2 ribs. • Broken bones in right leg and foot. Long recovery! • Kahlo’s mother had her an easel which fixed to Kahlo’s hospital bed. The easel had a mirrored canopy attached so Kahlo could act as her own model. • This was the beginning of her self portraits. • ‘I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best.’

6. Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) 1928 • Recovered from her injuries Kahlo joined a group of politically active young friends who gathered around the American expatriate photographer Tina Modotti. Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair (1932)

7. Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) 1929 • Kahlo and Rivera were married in a civil ceremony on August 21st. • Kahlo’s mother described it as a marriage between an elephant and a dove. • Kahlo was pregnant at the time, had a miscarriage shortly after the wedding. • Rivera was a passionate painter and would work up to 14 hours a day. • After their wedding he got immersed in a major mural depicting the political struggle in Mexico – Kahlo played the dutiful wife bringing him lunch everyday.

8. Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) • Kahlo was not painting while Rievera was completing his mural, she spent many lonely hours longing for a child to cement their relationship. • At the end of 1929, Kahlo became pregnant again. • Rivera was violently opposed to having children and also out of fear for Kahlo’s health, persuaded her to have an abortion.

9. Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) • Due to social and political turmoil in Mexico, Rivera was not getting any work. • 1930, Rivera got a mural commission in America, so they left for California.

10. Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) Rivera was the centre of attention and Kahlo spent a lot of time alone in a strange country. Sometimes Rivera would disappear for days. Kahlo became quite unhappy and subsequently had no desire to remain in America. ‘I find that Americans completely lack sensibility and good taste. They are boring and have faces like unbaked bread rolls.’ Self-Portrait on the Border Line Between Mexico and the United States (1932)

11. Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) The marriage of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo is one of the most famous alliances between artists. It is a well-known fact that they had a passionate and stormy relationship, filled with great love and also betrayals. They both had incredible talents and vision, but Diego's work would be more public and monumental, whereas Frida's was more personal and intimate in scale. Frieda and Diego Rivera (1931)

12. Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) 1932 • Kahlo became pregnant again. • Rivera requested her to have an abortion; instead she persisted with the pregnancy. However she suffered a miscarriage. • Around this time she proposed a substantial life project which involved creating a painting of every year of her life. • This marked the beginning of many highly intense self portraits that exposed that physical and emotional pain she suffered and that overwhelmed her life. Henry Ford Hospital (1932)

13. Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) 1935 • Rivera embarked on a relationship with Kahlo’s sister, Cristina. • She retaliated with various love affairs including one with the Russian revolution leader Leon Trotsky Self-Portrait (Dedicated to Leon Trotsky) (1937)

14. Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) 1938 • Andre Breton a French Poet and leading figure in the Surrealist movement, met Kahlo and saw her work. • He offered her an exhibition at the fashionable Julien Levy Gallery in New York. • The exhibition was an immediate success and many paintings were sold. • The Frame (1938) was purchased by the Louvre Museum. Self-Portrait with Monkey (1938)

15. Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) 1939 • Kahlo and Rivera divorced although they appeared in public together. • After months of separation Kahlo and Rivera were remarried a year later in December 1940. • Their marriage was still turbulent affair but they remained friends, with Rivera a constant supporter of Kahlo’s work. • Following her marriage to Rivera she developed a passionate love for all thing traditionally Mexican and dressed in the artistic tradition of the TehuantepicIndians. Self-Portrait (1940)

16. Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) 1943 • Kahlo and Rivera were invited to teach at The National School of Painting and Scupture in Mexico City, a new school for talented students from poor families. • Kahlo found this to be one of her most fulfilling experiences. • This was the start of a downward spiral in her health and she relied more heavily on drugs and alcohol to relieve her pain. Thinking about Death (1943)

17. Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) 1949 • Towards the end of the year, Kahlo returned to hospital. • It was the start of a journey of operations; amputations, pain and drugs, and it became apparent that she would never recover. Diego and I (1949)

18. Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) 1953 • Kahlo was offered her first and only solo exhibition in Mexico at the Galeria de Arte Contemporaneo. • Doctors advised her against accepting. • In great theatrical appearance, Kahlo arrived by ambulance witha motorcycle escort and sirens blaring and was carried into her exhibition to an admiring audience. Tree of Hope (1946)

19. Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) 1954 • Kahlo’s last public appearance was in 1954 where she participated in a Communist demonstration. • She died on the 13th July 1954 at the age of 47. • Her death was reported as pulmonary embolism but many of her friends believed that Kahlo, who suffered enormous pain may have taken an overdose of pain killers. Self-Portrait with the Portrait of Doctor Farill(1951)

20. Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) The Two Fridas(1939), Oil on canvas, 170 x 170 cm, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico.

21. Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) The Broken Column (1944), Oil on canvas, 38.6 x 31 cm, Dolores Olmedo Foundation, Mexico City, Mexico.