Magdalena Carmen FRIDA KAHLO y Calderón
was a Mexican painter who died on this date (b: 1907); Kahlo known for
her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and
artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by the country's popular culture, she
employed a naïve folk art style to explore questions of
identity, postcolonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society. Her
paintings often had strong autobiographical elements and mixed realism
with fantasy. In addition to belonging to the post-revolutionary Mexicayotl movement, which sought to define a Mexican identity, Kahlo has been described as a surrealist or magical realist. She is known for painting about her experience of chronic pain.
Born to a German father and a mestiza mother,
Kahlo spent most of her childhood and adult life at La Casa Azul, her
family home in Coyoacán – now publicly accessible as the Frida Kahlo
Museum. Although she was disabled by polio as a child, Kahlo had been a
promising student headed for medical school until she suffered a bus
accident at the age of 18, which caused her lifelong pain and medical
problems. During her recovery, she returned to her childhood interest in
art with the idea of becoming an artist.
Kahlo's interests in politics and art led her to join the Mexican Communist Party in 1927, through which she met fellow Mexican artist Diego Rivera. The couple married in 1929, and
spent the late 1920s and early 1930s travelling in Mexico and the
United States together. During this time, she developed her artistic
style, drawing her main inspiration from Mexican folk culture, and
painted mostly small self-portraits which mixed elements
from pre-Columbian and Catholic beliefs. Her paintings raised the
interest of Surrealist artist André Breton, who arranged for Kahlo's
first solo exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in 1938;
the exhibition was a success, and was followed by another in Paris in
1939. While the French exhibition was less successful,
the Louvre purchased a painting from Kahlo, The Frame, making her the first Mexican artist to be featured in their collection. Throughout
the 1940s, Kahlo participated in exhibitions in Mexico and the United
States and worked as an art teacher. She taught at the Escuela Nacional
de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado ("La Esmeralda") and was a founding member of the Seminario de Cultura Mexicana.
Kahlo's always-fragile health began to decline in the same decade. She
had her first solo exhibition in Mexico in 1953, shortly before her
death in 1954 at the age of 47.
Kahlo's work as
an artist remained relatively unknown until the late 1970s, when her
work was rediscovered by art historians and political activists. By the
early 1990s, she had become not only a recognized figure in art history,
but also regarded as an icon for Chicanos, the feminism movement and
the LGBTQ+ movement. Kahlo's work has been celebrated internationally as
emblematic of Mexican national and indigenous traditions and by
feminists for what is seen as its uncompromising depiction of the female
experience and form.
She was experiencing health problems – undergoing an appendectomy, two abortions, and the amputation of gangrenous toes – and her marriage to Rivera had become strained. He was not happy to be back in Mexico and blamed Kahlo for their return. While
he had been unfaithful to her before, he now embarked on an affair with
her younger sister Cristina, which deeply hurt Kahlo's feelings. After discovering it in early 1935, she moved to an apartment in central Mexico City and considered divorcing him. She also had an affair of her own with American artist Isamu Noguchi.
Kahlo reconciled with Rivera and Cristina later in 1935 and moved back to San Ángel. She became a loving aunt to Cristina's children, Isolda and Antonio. Despite the reconciliation, both Rivera and Kahlo continued their infidelities. She
also resumed her political activities in 1936, joining the Fourth
International and becoming a founding member of a solidarity committee
to provide aid to the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. She
and Rivera successfully petitioned the Mexican government to grant
asylum to former Soviet leader Leon Trotsky and offered La Casa Azul for
him and his wife Natalia Sedova as a residence. The
couple lived there from January 1937 until April 1939, with Kahlo and
Trotsky not only becoming good friends but also having a brief affair.
After opening an exhibition in Paris, Kahlo sailed back to New York. She
was eager to be reunited with Muray, but he decided to end their
affair, as he had met another woman whom he was planning to marry. Kahlo
traveled back to Mexico City, where Rivera requested a divorce from
her. The exact reasons for his decision are unknown, but he stated
publicly that it was merely a "matter of legal convenience in the style
of modern times ... there are no sentimental, artistic, or economic
reasons." According to their friends, the divorce was mainly caused by their mutual infidelities. He
and Kahlo were granted a divorce in November 1939, but remained
friendly; she continued to manage his finances and correspondence.
On August 21, 1940, Leon Trotsky was assassinated in Coyoacán, where he had continued to live after leaving La Casa Azul. Kahlo
was briefly suspected of being involved, as she knew the murderer, and
was arrested and held for two days with her sister Cristina. The following month, Kahlo traveled to San Francisco for medical treatment for back pain and a fungal infection on her hand. Her
continuously fragile health had increasingly declined since her divorce
and was exacerbated by her heavy consumption of alcohol.
Rivera was also in San Francisco after he fled Mexico City following Trotsky's murder and accepted a commission. Although Kahlo had a relationship with art dealer Heinz Berggruen during her visit to San Francisco, she and Rivera reconciled. They remarried in a simple civil ceremony on December 8, 1940. Kahlo
and Rivera returned to Mexico soon after their wedding. The union was
less turbulent than before for its first five years. Both were more independent,
and while La Casa Azul was their primary residence, Rivera retained the
San Ángel house for use as his studio and second apartment. Both continued having extramarital affairs; Kahlo, being a bisexual, had affairs with both men and women.
Kahlo's right leg was amputated at the knee due to gangrene in August 1953. She became severely depressed and anxious, and her dependency on painkillers escalated. When Rivera began yet another affair, she attempted suicide by overdose. She
wrote in her diary in February 1954, "They amputated my leg six months
ago, they have given me centuries of torture and at moments I almost
lost my reason. I keep on wanting to kill myself. Diego is what keeps me
from it, through my vain idea that he would miss me. ... But never in
my life have I suffered more. I will wait a while..."
In her last days, Kahlo was mostly bedridden with bronchopneumonia,
though she made a public appearance in July 1954, participating with
Rivera in a demonstration against the CIA invasion of Guatemala. She seemed to anticipate her death, as she spoke about it to visitors and drew skeletons and angels in her diary. The last drawing was a black angel, which biographer Hayden Herrera interprets as the Angel of Death. It
was accompanied by the last words she wrote, "I joyfully await the
exit – and I hope never to return – Frida" ("Espero Alegre la Salida – y
Espero no Volver jamás").
The demonstration worsened her illness, and on the night of July 12, 1954, Kahlo had a high fever and was in extreme pain. At approximately 6 a.m. on July 13, 1954, her nurse found her dead in her bed. Kahlo was 47 years old. The official cause of death was pulmonary embolism, although no autopsy was performed. Herrera has argued that Kahlo, in fact, committed suicide. The
nurse, who counted Kahlo's painkillers to monitor her drug use, stated
that Kahlo had taken an overdose the night she died. She had been
prescribed a maximum dose of seven pills but had taken eleven. She had also given Rivera a wedding anniversary present that evening, over a month in advance.
Kahlo's body was
taken to the Palacio de Bellas Artes, where it lay in a state under a
Communist flag. The following day, it was carried to the Panteón Civil
de Dolores, where friends and family attended an informal funeral
ceremony. Hundreds of admirers stood outside. In accordance with her wishes, Kahlo was cremated. Rivera, who stated that her death was "the most tragic day of my life", died three years later, in 1957. Kahlo's ashes are displayed in a pre-Columbian urn at La Casa Azul, which opened as a museum in 1958.
