Kahlo, Frida (1907–1954)

Although she was born on July 6, 1907, in Coyoacán, the historic suburb of Mexico City, Frida Kahlo publicly declared her birth date 1910 so that she would be considered a true daughter of the Mexican Revolution. From 1926, when she painted her first self-portrait, to her death in 1954, Kahlo produced nearly 200 easel paintings, one third of which are self-portraits. Her art, considered revolutionary for its disturbing personal iconography, depicts the tortured and ravaged female body. Kahlo's painting reflects the confluence of art and politics, yet the biographical details of her unconventional life continue to press on the public's perception of her art. Careful analysis of Kahlo's physical and emotional pain, erotic life, and personal politics, however, supplant the sensational and affirm her art and life in a matrix of broader social, political, and cultural concerns.

Kahlo was the daughter of Matilde Calderón y González, a devout Catholic mestiza (mixed-race origins), and Guillermo Kahlo, a photographer and German Jew of Austro-Hungarian descent. She received her education at Mexico City's Escuela Preparatoria Nacional (National Preparatory School) where she was one of only 35 girls in a total enrollment of 2,000. There, Kahlo displayed an aptitude for science. In fact, she hoped to become a doctor at a time when female doctors were an anomaly. Following her studies at the Preparatoria, Kahlo took an apprenticeship with commercial engraver Fernando Fernández, which allowed her to demonstrate her proclivity for scientific drawing (biological details feature as a prominent compositional element of Kahlo's painting). However, Kahlo's ambition to pursue medicine was cut short in 1925 when she was injured in a catastrophic bus and trolley collision. A metal handrail impaled Kahlo in her lower torso, and as a result, she suffered irreparable damage to her uterus, multiple fractures to her pelvis, spine, feet, ribs, and collarbone. Remarkably, 18-year-old Kahlo recovered from her injuries, but she was never fully free of pain. All told, Kahlo underwent about 30 surgeries during the remainder of her life.

Thanks to the mirror and easel that her father installed above her bed, Kahlo began to paint in what many consider therapeutic response to her pain and confinement. Without the benefit of formal art training except for her brief engraver's apprenticeship and her father's introduction to the principles of photography, Kahlo displayed significant talent, her first painting, Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress, in 1926 showing an affinity to the conventions of Renaissance portraiture. Once recovered, Kahlo mixed with the aesthetic elite of Mexico among them Mexico's premier artist, Diego Rivera. The two first met when Rivera was completing a mural commission at the Preparatoria where Kahlo was a student; their reintroduction was instigated in the hope that Rivera would favorably assess her painting and subsequently offer her some [Page 794]part in assisting with his mural projects. However, rather than launch Kahlo's painting career, Rivera helped secure Kahlo a teaching position.

The Kahlo-Rivera relationship moved quickly from professional association to intimacy and the two married on August 21, 1929. Yet due to the social expectations associated with her new role as the wife of Mexico's premier artist, Kahlo did not pursue a teaching career. Instead, she accompanied Rivera to various mural sites in Mexico and the United States and forged ahead with her own painting. The Kahlo-Rivera union proved uneasy during these years, with Rivera's philandering a constant source of anxiety for Kahlo. The two divorced in 1940, but remarried later that same year. Kahlo learned to negotiate Rivera's infidelities in their second marriage by engaging in numerous extramarital affairs of her own and exploring her bisexuality, most notably with Italian photographer Tina Modetti and Leon Trotsky.

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