FRIDA KAHLO
A short biography
Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo Calderón was born the 6th of July of 1907 in Mexico City, in the house that her parents owned since 1904 and which is known today as the Blue House (la Casa Azul). Frida was the third of the four daughters born to the couple formed by Wilhelm (Guillermo) Kahlo (of German descent) and Matilde Calderón (who was from the southern state of Oaxaca). Matilde and Adriana were her older sisters, and Cristina, who was the youngest of the four, was very close to the artist. However, in later years, the affair that Cristina had with Diego Rivera caused the breakup of Frida and the muralist.
Frida had a tough childhood. At the age of six, she contracted poliomyelitis, an illness that would provoke a deformation of the uterus eventually preventing her from bearing children. The illness also left Frida with a shorter right leg; but in spite of this physical impairment, she had a tenacious and curious spirit, and she finished her studies at the National Preparatory School.
At eighteen, on September 17, 1925, Frida suffered a dramatic accident. The bus she travelled on was struck by a trolley. The consequences were most unfortunate: not just some broken bones, but an injured dorsal spine. During the time she was bedridden, Frida began to paint. She met several artists, among them the photographer Tina Modotti and the already famous Diego Rivera. The muralist married Frida in 1929. The couple moved into the Blue House, in Coyoacán, that was Frida’s childhood house, but they also lived in Diego’s studio, in San Angel. Cuernavaca in Mexico, as well as Detroit, San Francisco and New York City in the United States, were other cities where Frida and Diego lived during some periods of their married life.
In 1930, Frida suffered a first miscarriage. In November of that year, the couple visited San Francisco because of Diego’s work. There, Frida met Dr. Leo Eloesser, who became a close friend as well as her doctor (not the only one, though). A year later, the painter had a second miscarriage in Detroit, and a third one upon her return to Mexico.
Diego’s infidelities added to the emotional distress of the artist. Frida divorced the muralist in 1939; but one year later they got married again.
Notwithstanding her bad health, and in spite of the many times she underwent surgery, Frida was a very enthusiastic person. She was a committed member of the Communist Party and a left activist. Frida and Diego made some reforms in the Blue House to house Leon Trotsky and his wife, Natalia, who had been granted political assylum in Mexico. The pulmonary embolism that caused her death was triggered by the artist’s participation in a political march two days before.
She was an outstanding teacher at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura y Escultura La Esmeralda, where a group of young painters came to be known as “Los Fridos”.
In her work and in her everyday life—through her language, her clothes and her cooking—Frida undertook a crusade to rescue the popular roots of Mexican culture, convinced as she was that there lay our true national identity. She drew her inspiration from ex votos, religious reredos, and “milagros” (small religious charms). Her painting ranges from self-portraits to “naturalezas vivas”, including canvases on national identity—such as El marxismo dará salud a los enfermos (Marxism will bring health to the sick)—and realistic pictures bearing on the feminine condition. Mi nacimiento (My Birth), for example, is a pitiless view of birth. She has sometimes been called a surrealist painter; but she herself refused this typification, arguing that her painting was about her real life, not about her dreams.
Towards the end of her life, her health declined. In her last ten years, she wore more than 25 corsets. She was confined in the ABC Hospital in Mexico City from 1950 to 1951. Facing the risk of gangrene, she had her right leg amputated in 1953. On July 13, 1954, as the National Institute of Fine Arts was organizing an exhibition of her work as a national homage, Frida Kahlo died in the Blue House.
Some of the most famous paintings by the artist are Las dos Fridas (The two Fridas), Viva la vida, Unos cuantos piquetitos, and Diego en mi pensamiento. During her lifetime, her work was shown in three exhibitions: one in New York, another in the gallery of Lola Álvarez Bravo in Mexico, and the third one in Paris. The Louvre Museum purchased one of the higher priced self-portraits. In Mexico she was given the National Painting Award.
Today, her work holds a relevant place in the art market. Frida’s paintings are to be found in a number of private collections in Mexico, Europe, and the United States. Her figure is an emblem of international feminism. Frida Kahlo has become a legend, a cultural reference that goes beyond the myth that she herself contributed to create.
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Col. del Carmen
Coyoacán
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Tel. 5554 5999
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museo@museofridakahlo.org