I have spent three hours collecting, sorting and sifting through all pf her paintings that I found. I posted the best images of her paintings, and easy to navigate and enjoy each painting without distraction. So far I had a vague image of Frida, but now I can see her unique character as human being and singular paintings as an artist.
Origins
Considered one of the Mexico’s greatest artist, Frida Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907 in Coyoacán, Mexico City, Mexico. She grew up in the family’s home where was later referred as the Blue House or Casa Azul. Her father is a German descendant and photographer. He immigrated to Mexico where he met and married her mother Matilde. Her mother is half Amerindian and half Spanish. Frida Kahlo has two older sisters and one younger sister.
Early Life
Frida Kahlo has poor health in her childhood. She contracted polio at age of 6 and had to be bedridden for nine months. This disease caused her right leg and food grow much thinner than her left one. She limped after she recovered from the polio.
She has been wearing long skirts to cover that for the rest of her life. Her father encouraged her to do lots of sports to help her recover. She played soccer, went swimming, and even did wrestle, which is very unusual at that time for a girl. She has kept a very close relationship with her father for her whole life.
Early Education
Frida Kahlo attended the renowned National Preparatory School in Mexico city in year of 1922. There are only thirty-five female students enrolled in that school and she soon became famous for her outspokenness and bravery.
At this school she first met the famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera for the first time. Rivera at that time was working on a mural called The Creation on the school campus. Frida often watched it and she told a friend she will marry him someday.
View Frida Kahlo Paintings
Kahlo’s highly personal approach to self-portraiture can also be explored alongside Andy Warhol, another major artist whose repeated images and portraits made the artist’s own identity an important part of the work.
Injury
At the same year, Kahlo joined a gang of students which shared the similar political and intellectual views. She fell in love with the leader Alejandro Gomez Arias. On a September afternoon when she traveled with Gomez Arias on a bus the tragic accident happened.
The bus collided with a streetcar and Frida Kahlo was seriously injured. A steel handrail impaled her through the hip. Her spine and pelvis are fractured and this accident left her in a great deal of pain, both physically and physiologically.
She was injured so badly and had to stay in the Red Cross Hospital in Mexico City for several weeks. After that she returned home for further recovery.
She had to wear full body cast for three months. To kill the time and alleviate the pain, she started painting and finished her first first self-portrait the following year.
Frida Kahlo once said,
“I paint myself because I am often alone and I am the subject I know best”.
Her parents encouraged her to paint and made a special easel made for her so she could paint in bed. They also gave her brushes and boxes of paints. frida kahlo