Last updated on September 9th, 2024 at 05:13 pm
Early Life and Tragic Accident
Frida Kahlo once wrote in her diary, “There have been two great accidents in my life: one was the trolley, and the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst.” Born Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón on July 6, 1907, in Mexico, she later shortened her name to Frida Kahlo. She wanted everyone to believe she was born in 1910, aligning her life with the Mexican Revolution. Frida deeply identified with the political upheaval that was steering Mexico toward socialism and eventually became a Marxist.
As a feminist painter, Frida Kahlo was more influential and widely admired than any theoretical feminist. However, her life was also an epic of indescribable suffering. At six years old, polio permanently damaged her right leg. Then, at eighteen, while returning home from school with her boyfriend, Frida’s bus collided with a streetcar. The accident left her with multiple fractures in her spine, back, ribs, collarbone, left shoulder, and right leg. A metal rod pierced through her pelvis, puncturing her stomach and uterus. During her hospital stay, Frida learned she would never be able to bear children.
Finding Solace in Art
Throughout her life, Frida underwent more than thirty surgeries and suffered until her death. During her slow recovery in bed, her father attached a special easel to her bed so she could paint and ease her mind. Frida then taught herself to paint, often studying the art of the Old Masters in her own way.
Meeting Diego Rivera
Frida first met Diego Rivera in 1922. At the time, Diego was painting the mural “La Creación” in the Simon Bolívar Amphitheater at Mexico’s National Preparatory School. The mischievous Frida often teased and played pranks on Diego as he painted. At fifteen, Frida fell somewhat in love with the charismatic and woman-loving Diego—even telling her friends that one day she would be the mother of Diego’s child. Diego saw in her “tremendous self-respect, a great confidence, and a strange fire in her eyes.”
Years later, people say they met again at a party hosted by Tina Modotti, an Italian photographer and a former lover of Diego’s. However, Diego wrote in his memoirs that they met again when Frida visited the Ministry of Education and watched his paintings for hours. He didn’t initially realize that this was the same girl who had teased him years ago.
One day, Frida invited Diego to her home and asked for an honest critique of her work. Diego told her, “In my opinion, no matter what obstacles arise, you must never stop painting.”
The Elephant and the Dove
When Diego Rivera married Frida Kahlo, Frida’s father jokingly said it was “the union of an elephant and a dove.” Diego was twenty years older than Frida and already a leading figure in Mexico’s burgeoning modern art scene. Diego was six feet tall and of large build, while Frida was a petite twenty-two-year-old who had just recovered from the tragic accident that had profoundly changed her life.
“I didn’t know it then, but Frida had already become the most important part of my life and remained so until my death,” Diego thought about Frida. Diego described how Frida paraded in front of her paintings in her room at her home, Casa Azul, filling Diego’s soul with an amazing joy. Later, Diego recalled realizing that “this woman” would deeply influence him for life.
A Tumultuous Relationship
Frida’s mother believed Diego was unsuitable for her daughter, while her father warned Diego that his beloved daughter was a “devil incarnate.” Clearly, neither heeded these warnings. In 1929, Frida and Diego married. This strange pair fascinated the world, and their relationship became one of the most intriguing and tumultuous in art history. Their fascination, passion, and devotion were mixed with jealousy, anger, and betrayal. Both had many extramarital affairs.
Diego revived Mexico’s native mural tradition, and Frida became a pioneer in a bold new form of self-portraiture. Diego Rivera was an inseparable name in Frida Kahlo’s life. Diego was present in all the essence of her paintings and personal life. In post-revolutionary Mexico’s male-dominated environment, Frida emerged as a feminist icon, breaking all social norms and creating some of the most poignant paintings of the twentieth century.
Rising Career Amid Personal Turmoil
By 1939, Frida Kahlo’s career was flourishing, but her personal life was falling apart. She stayed away from Mexico and Diego for three months in 1939. Her first solo exhibition in New York was a huge success. Hollywood actor Edward G. Robinson bought four of her works. Later that year, she had another successful exhibition in Paris, where the Louvre purchased one of her works. The leader of the Surrealists, André Breton, described her paintings as “each like a bomb wrapped in a colorful ribbon.” Frida became a massive celebrity in Paris.
When Frida returned to Mexico in April 1939, she was a changed woman. At thirty-two, she had become one of the world’s leading avant-garde artists, succeeding without the help of her famous husband. But while she was away, Diego enjoyed life in his way, and their relationship began to crumble. Diego was involved in many affairs, and so was Frida—with both men and women. But Diego’s affair with Frida’s beloved sister Cristina was something Frida couldn’t accept. She left home, and Diego initiated divorce proceedings. Although they remarried a year later, they could never be apart from each other.
The Two Fridas
During this dramatic period, Frida started painting “The Two Fridas.” She said this painting represented “the Frida that Diego loved and the Frida he didn’t love.” Of her nearly 200 paintings, 55 were self-portraits. After the accident at eighteen, she spent a year bedridden. Her father gave her paints, and her mother made a special stand for her to paint from her hospital bed, with a mirror above to see herself. For someone with so many limitations, self-portraiture was a convenient subject. Most of Frida’s paintings were small because many were painted while lying in bed. “The Two Fridas” is an exception, measuring 1.73 by 1.73 meters, almost life-sized, and her largest painting. The commercial reason behind this shift was that she was getting more recognition and being advised to make larger canvases as they were “more commercial.”
In “The Two Fridas,” the dark-skinned Frida on the right is the native Mexican Frida, loved by her husband, while the fair-skinned Frida on the left is the European Frida, rejected by Diego. The Mexican Frida wears traditional Tehuana clothing. The native Tehuana, a matriarchal society, had become a cultural symbol for Mexican revolutionaries. Her attire sent a clear message of cultural identity, nationalism, and feminism. But the Tehuana skirt, boxy blouse, elaborate hairstyles, and facial hair had another practical purpose—a disguise. By focusing attention on her head and shoulders, she diverted attention from her polio-affected leg. From childhood, she wore long skirts to hide her right leg. Loose clothing concealed her limp. After the bus accident, she had to wear a medical corset due to severe spinal injuries. Throughout her life, she underwent more than thirty major operations, including the amputation of her right leg in 1953. She wore a sleeveless blouse called “huipil” over a medical corset or plaster cast. In 2004, a small drawing was found behind a wardrobe at Casa Azul, Frida’s home. It was a self-portrait in charcoal and crayon, showing her broken body under a transparent dress. Underneath the drawing, she wrote in Spanish, “Not what you see.” Frida only adopted native clothing on her wedding day in 1929. In fact, it was Diego’s suggestion, so after their divorce, she abandoned the clothes and cut her hair, rejecting Diego. In the painting, the Mexican Frida’s heart is intact, holding a small portrait of Diego.
The European Frida’s heart is not connected to her beloved Diego and bleeds profusely onto her dress, wearing European attire.
A recurring theme in Frida’s work is blood, representing her physical and emotional pain. Like in an earlier painting, she uses blood as a metaphor for union. But for Frida, who could not bear children, it also signifies femininity and fertility. What is clear about the painting is that though the two Fridas are broken in pain, they support each other. A connecting vein unites the loved and unloved Frida—the European and Mexican Frida. The weaker heart supports the stronger one. It is a painting about the loss of a relationship. But at its core is the duality of her identity. The complexity of dual ethnic identity and how one balances both sides was a lifelong concern for Frida.
Love, Art, and Identity
In the painting “Frida and Diego,” Diego is the grand artist with his palette and brushes, supporting his humble, adoring wife. In contrast, in a self-portrait painted later in their marriage, Frida is seen supporting and helping herself. She is her own woman, supporting herself. Frida and Diego remarried in 1940, less than a year after their divorce. Their relationship was chaotic, dysfunctional, and turbulent. But in the end, they couldn’t live without each other.
Frida Kahlo’s life was a remarkable blend of passion, pain, and resilience. Her tumultuous relationship with Diego Rivera was as much a source of inspiration as it was a catalyst for her suffering. Despite the physical and emotional challenges she faced, Frida transformed her agony into powerful art that continues to resonate with audiences worldwide. Her legacy is not just in her vibrant, surreal paintings but also in her role as a feminist icon who defied societal norms and embraced her complex identity. Frida Kahlo’s story is a testament to the indomitable human spirit, showing how art can emerge from the depths of adversity to inspire and provoke thought across generations.
Leave a Reply