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Frida Kahlo
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Biography
One of the most famous female artists, Frida Kahlo taught herself how to paint. She first started making paintings after she was badly hurt in a bus accident when she was eighteen years old. Forced to rest while her broken bones healed, Kahlo made her first self-portrait.

Born on July 6, 1907, Kahlo grew up in the family's home-Casa Azul (Blue House)-in the Coyoacán area of Mexico City. She was only a schoolgirl when she met artist Diego Rivera for the first time. They were later married after the famous bus accident that changed Kahlo's life forever. The two had a stormy relationship and Kahlo was saddened by her failed efforts to have a child. She also had to contend with health problems, many of which were related to the bus crash.

Many of the hardships Kahlo experienced found their way on to her canvases. She often painted images of herself, her family, and her relationships. Over time, Kahlo became well known for her unusual and vivid works. She showed her art in many parts of the world, drawing interest from critics and art collectors.

Today Frida Kahlo is considered one of the leading Mexican artists of the twentieth century as well as one of the pioneering women in art. Her paintings can be seen in many leading museums around the world, and her beloved Blue House is now a museum dedicated to her life and work.

Interesting Facts
"My painting carries with it the message of pain."
"I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best."
"I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality."
Interesting Facts
Mexican actress Salma Hayek portrayed Frida Kahlo in the 2002 film “Frida.”
Frida’s 1943 painting “Roots” sold for $5.6 million on auction, setting a record for the sale of a Latin American work of art.
Frida  painting, "My Birth" (1932),  is owned by Madonna.
Frida often claimed 1910, the start of the Mexican revolution, as her birth year in order to be more closely associated with the important event.
Frida’s self-portrait "The Frame" is the first work by a 20th century Mexican artist to be purchased by the Louvre museum.
Awards and Accolades
Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress (1926)
Time Flies (1929)
Frieda and Diego Rivera (1931)
The Frame (1937/8)
What The Water Gave Me (1938)
The Two Fridas (1939)
Self-Portrait as a Tehuana (1943)
The Broken Column (1944)
Moses (1945)
Diego and I (1949)
The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), Me, Diego, and Mr. Xolotl (1949)
Biographies
Diego Rivera
Frida's husband and one of Mexico's most famous artists.
Leon Trotsky
This communist leader fled Russia after losing a power struggle with Joseph Stalin. He lived with Kahlo for a time while Trotsky and his wife were in Mexico.
Salma Hayek
A popular actress, she played Kahlo in Frida, the 2002 movie about the artist's life.
Alfred Molina
This well-known actor played Diego Rivera in the film Frida (2002).
Kahlo Timeline
1907
Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderon is born on July 6 in Coyoacán, Mexico to Matila and German-born Guillermo Kahlo, a photographer.
1913
She is stricken with polio and recovers after nine months but is left with a smaller right leg and a limp. She then attends primary school where she is nicknamed “peg-leg Frida.”
1922
Enrolls at the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria (National Preparatory School) in Mexico City. She is one of the 35 girls out of the 2,000 students accepted at the famous institution. At the school she joins a socialist-nationalistic group called Los Cachuchas and soon begins dating the leader of the group Alejandro Gomez Arias. She also meets Mexican artist Diego Rivera, who is at the school to paint a mural.
1925
Works as an apprenticeship to her father’s friend Fernando Fernandez, a commercial printmaker, who teaches her to draw and copy prints.
Suffers terrible injuries in a bus accident on September 17, that breaks her spinal column, collarbone, ribs, pelvis, fracturing her leg in eleven places and an iron handrail punctures her abdomen and uterus. While she is bed-ridden and encased in a body cast she takes up painting, starts making self-portraits.
1927
Joins the Young Communist League.
1928
Meets Diego Rivera again, seeking out his advice on her paintings and they begins a romantic relationship. He paints her into his “Ballad of the Revolution” mural at the Ministry of Public Education, in a panel named “Frida Kahlo Distributes the Arms.”
1929
Weds Diego Rivera on August 21 at the Coyoacán city hall in Mexico. She leaves the communist party after Diego is kicked out. The couple then moves to Cuernavaca, Mexico.
1930
She moves to San Francisco California with Diego.
1931
Her art is shown for the first time as her painting “Frida and Diego Rivera” is exhibited at the Sixth Annual Exhibit of the San Francisco Society of Women Artists.
1932
Moves with Diego to Detroit, Michigan, where she suffers a miscarriage, spending 13 days at the Henry Ford Hospital. In the hospital she paints the self-portrait “Miscarriage in Detroit.” She returns to Mexico after receiving word that her mother is dying.
1933
Moves to New York with Diego when he receives a commission to paint a mural in the RCA building at Rockefeller Center. They return to Mexico after the commission is cancelled.
1934
She undergoes foot surgery where several toes are removed.She separates from Rivera. The following year she embarks on a romantic relationship with the sculptor Isamu Noguchi.
1937
She provides safe harbor for Russian communist Leon Trotsky and his wife at her Blue House in Mexico. She has her first public showing in Mexico when four of her paintings are included in a group exhibition at the Galeria de Arte at the National Autonomous University.
1938
Surrealist Andre Breton labels her a surrealist painter and helps her get her first solo exhibition at the Julian Levy Gallery in New York.
1939
She travels to France where her work is featured in an exhibition at the Renou and Colle Gallery, aided by French artist Marcel Duchamp. While in Paris she is hospitalized for a kidney infection. After returning to Mexico she divorces Diego Rivera by the end of the year.
1940
She remarries Rivera in a civil ceremony in San Francisco on December 8.
1941
Her art is shown in the "Modern Mexican Painters" exhibit at the Institution of Modern Art in Boston. The following year her work is included in the exhibit "20th-Century Portraits" at the Museum of Modern Art.
1943
Teaches at the Education Ministry's School of Painting and Sculpture (La Esmeralda), but after a few months her ailing health forces her to teach art classes at home in the Blue House.
1946
Receives the National Prize of Arts and Sciences by the Ministry of Education.
1950
She spends the majority of the year in the hospital undergoing operations on her spine, confining her to a wheelchair.
1952
Paints a series of still-life and collects a list of signatures in support of the peace movement.
1953
Her right leg is amputated below the knee due to gangrene and she is carried in a bed to attend her art show at the Mexico City Gallery of Contemporary Art.
1954
She participates in a demonstration against American intervention in Guatemala on July 2.

Frida Kahlo dies on July 13 at the age of 47, The cause of death is recorded as pulmonary embolism and her last written journal entry reads "I hope the exit is joyful - and I hope never to return - Frida"



 

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