The only woman EVER to win Eve's powerbrow and powerchick titles simultaneously
Frida Kahlo:
Groundbreaking artist, definitive representationalist and rebel with a cause.
Vitals:
Born: July 6, 1907, according to her birth certificate, but she told people July 7, 1910 because she wanted to be born with the Mexican Revolution which took place that year (or vanity, anyone?), in a suburb of Mexico City, Mexico. She was a mestizo, born of European and native Mexican parents.
Off to a Shaky Start: Frida was stricken with polio at age six. Because her legs were uneven, her peers teased her. She entered the National Preparatory School in hopes of becoming a doctor, a very uncommon ambition for a young woman at the time. As she grew up, she joined a band of roughniks, playing pranks and wreaking havoc on her teachers and classmates.
A Ride with Destiny: While riding the bus with her boyfriend, when she was eighteen, it crashed and a handrail penetrated her pelvis completely. She survived with a broken leg, collarbone, pelvis, and shattered ribs. It was in the hospital that she started painting.
No Pain, No Gain: Frida's physical pain, her heavy braces that she walked with and her inability to have children were common themes in her artwork. Mixing vibrant colours, modern painting techniques and shocking honesty, she was quickly adopted by the Surrealist art movement. Her numerous self-portrait indicate that she wanted to visualize her own suffering and project it on to another Frida. She even painted her own birth, "My Birth," in 1932. The blood
sybolizes the suffering she felt was her destiny.
Not a Wallflower: Her radical sense of style received widespread attention. Similarly, her political convinctionswere far from conservative; she joined the Mexican Communist Party in 1928. She influenced her people in a more direct way as a teacher at La Esmeralda art school.
Love Hurts: Frida met famed muralist and womanizer Diego Rivera when she was in high school. They were married on August 21, 1929. Rivera was an arresting personality and had affairs with many women, including Frida's little sister. She was not the epitome of loyalty, herself, having been linked to many men and women like comrade Leon Trotsky. Rivera and Kahlo divorced in 1939 and remarried in 1940.
Though their tempers clashed, theirs was a deep and passionate love. As artists, they were mutual admirers and critics.
Get Up, Stand Up: Aside from her painting Frida's radical views and gall attracted attention. When her leg was amputated in 1953, shortly before her only exhibit in Mexico, she would not let a little amputation stop her from attending. Though forbidden, she "crashed" in a hospital stretcher.
Painter with a Purpose: She painted with a purpose: "I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration."
Going out with a Bang: Frida died of complications from pneumonia at the age of 44. On the day of her funeral, in July 1954, an incinerator exploded, sending Frida's body upright, setting her hair on fire and spooking the hell out of all in attendance. Some see it as her grand finale: she had finally escaped her pain.
Not just another pretty face: In 1990, an American Frida Kahlo fan set a record for his favourite artist. Kahlo's painting became the first by a Latin American artist to sell for $1 million.
What she left us: Frida Kahlo was a tumultuous figure, giving a voice to female agony and paving the way for artists and latinas. She is considered by many art historians to be one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century. She home in Casa Azul is now a museum.
For a quick sample of Frida's work, visit:
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