Drama by Frida Kahlo. Frida Kahlo Museum

In May 2014, one of Kahlo's self-portraits was put up for auction, tentatively valued at $7 million. By the will of fate, having failed to become a doctor, Frida Kahlo became a great artist. This beautiful Mexican woman suffered a lot. She painted while confined to a hospital bed. And this strong woman always strived for victory.

Kaloism.
Today, the shocking paintings of Frida Kahlo are valued very highly, in the millions of dollars. The phenomenal popularity of Frida’s works even got its own name – kaloism. Many show business celebrities are considered his supporters. For example, in Madonna’s house hangs Frida’s painting “My Birth,” depicting the artist’s own bloody head between her mother’s spread legs. Based on this painting, Madonna evaluates people: “If someone doesn’t like this painting, I lose all interest in that person. He will never be my friend." Another admirer of Kahlo, Salma Hayek, became a producer in order to play the main role in the film “Frida”, and she persuaded Antonio Banderas and Edward Norton to act in the film. They say that for this role, Salma even grew a mustache, shaving the fluff above her lip. During her lifetime, Frida Kahlo became a legend and an idol for many people. And only she alone knows what it cost her.

Frida Kahlo: "My Birth" Mexican artist.

Frida Kahlo's childhood. Drama.
Frida had three birthdays. According to documents, she was born on July 6, 1907. But the artist herself insisted that she was born simultaneously with the Mexican Revolution, that is, in 1910. Frida's father was a photographer and often took his daughter to work, where he taught retouching.
Frida became disabled at the age of six. Due to polio, her right leg was deformed. The future great artist tried to hide this flaw by putting extra stockings on her legs or wearing men's suits and long dresses. But at school she was still teased with the offensive nickname “Frida – the bone leg.” The girl was angry, but did not fall into despair: she practiced boxing, played football, and swam. If she became unbearably sad, then Frida would go to the window, breathe on it and draw on the foggy glass the door behind which her only best friend, a figment of the imagination of a lonely child, was waiting. Only to this friend could Frida reveal her tormented soul. They dreamed, cried and laughed together. Many years later, Frida Kahlo wrote in her diary: “I copied her movements when she danced, I talked to her about everything, and she knew everything about me. Every time I remember her, she rises within me.”

Little Frida Kahlo

The third birth of Frida Kahlo.
On her own initiative, a fifteen-year-old girl entered a prestigious school to study medicine. For women of that time, this was not the most common decision - there were only 35 female students out of two thousand students. Frida immediately became popular. She even created her own closed student group “Kachuchas”, which included creative youth. The guys lost their heads at one glance at this black-eyed beauty with lush braids. Life seemed to be getting better. But it was an illusion. All her life Frida was associated with medicine, but not as a doctor, but as a patient. (you can visit the Frida Museum in ours)

Just a few scratches, 1935

On September 17, 1925, Frida Kahlo was returning from class by bus and had a serious accident. The metal rod pierced the fragile body of the seventeen-year-old beauty, breaking her hips, crushing her pelvic bones and damaging her spine. The leg, withered by polio, was broken in eleven places, and the left foot was crushed. Bloodied Frida lay on the rails, and no one believed that she would survive. But the girl won again - she escaped from the tenacious clutches of death. This is how her third birth took place.

Without Hope, 1945

The new life became endlessly painful. Frida tried to drown out the terrible pain in her back and legs with drugs and alcohol, while destroying herself. In the thirty years of life after the accident, there have been thirty surgical operations. However, the most difficult were the first months of rehabilitation, when she was confined to a hospital bed and immobilized with a special corset. Only the hands remained free from plaster casts. Frida asked her father to bring her brushes and paints. The father complied with his daughter’s request and made her a special stretcher that allows her to draw while lying down. The only plot available within the hospital ward was the image of Frida herself in the mirror opposite the bed. Then Frida decided to paint self-portraits.

Self-portraits.
More than half of Frida Kahlo's works are self-portraits. Her work is a confession, striking in its frankness. With the help of a brush and paints, Frida encrypted her emotions, thoughts, hopes and sorrows. She doesn't smile in any of the pictures.
Critics called her writing style a mixture of the elegance of a propaganda poster, bazaar simplicity and deep metaphysics. The surrealists considered the artist one of their own, but Frida objected: “Surrealists paint dreams, but I paint my own reality.”
Already in the late 1930s, the artist’s painting was bought by the Louvre. In 1979, the painting “The Tree of Hope” went under the hammer (the auction price reached fifteen thousand dollars). Twenty years later, one of Kahlo's self-portraits was bought for two hundred thousand dollars. After her death, her works began to sell for much more. An example of this is “Self-Portrait with a Monkey and a Parrot,” sold to an unknown collector at the famous Sotheby’s auction for $4.9 million.

Fulang Chang and I, 1937

Elephant and dove.
The first person who appreciated the undoubted talent of Frida Kahlo was the Mexican artist Diego Rivera - the only love of his life. Although Frida called her husband “the second accident” (she considered the first to be a car accident). Diego was twice as old and twice the size of little Frida, whose height was only 153 centimeters. The artist first saw him at school, where Rivera was painting the walls. Even then, the girl told her friends that she would definitely marry him and bear him children.

Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo

Diego Rivera was a very large man, like a gentle giant. He often painted himself in the form of a pot-bellied frog with someone's heart in his paw, which characterized Diego as a desperate womanizer. Oddly enough, women adored Diego. Frida Kahlo became his third wife. Together they looked very strange. Friends called this married couple “the elephant and the dove.” Diego's character was disgusting. Already on the wedding day, after getting drunk, he threw the first family scandal with firing a pistol.

Diego and Frida, 1931

Frida, in spite of everything, loved her husband very much, drew him all the time and dedicated poems to him.
Diego Rivera was a convinced communist, which also infected Frida. She even joined the Mexican Communist Party. The couple's famous "blue house" was located in a bohemian area of ​​the Mexican capital. Almost all the famous artists, writers, musicians and politicians who came to Mexico visited this house. Leon Trotsky also visited the couple, who fell madly in love with the young artist and even wrote her lyrical letters. Diego and Frida threw noisy parties, and their names did not leave the pages of the press. However, pompous and beautiful on the outside, their life on the inside was not at all cloudless. Frida really wanted to have a child, but after three miscarriages this dream faded.

Frida in the hospital

Despite the fact that Frida adored her husband, it was rumored that she regularly cheated on him, and not only with men. Diego also did not maintain marital fidelity. Unlike his wife, he did not hide his love affairs, which caused unbearable pain to proud Frida. After Diego seduced Christina Kahlo (Frida's younger sister) in 1939, the couple divorced.

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera

After the divorce, Frida Kahlo continued to write. Her paintings were full of suffering and black humor. Frida and Diego could not live apart for long - a year later they got married again and did not part until the artist’s death.

Posthumous show.
This fragile, crippled, but not broken by fate woman lived only forty-seven years, thirty of which were filled with pain. During the attacks, she drank, swore and drew passionately.
Despite her suffering, she continued to throw lively parties. Frida loved to joke – including at herself. Her first and last solo exhibition took place in 1953, just a year before the artist’s death. And shortly before this significant event, Frida Kahlo’s leg was amputated almost to the knee, as gangrene began. Doctors forbade her to get up, but she could not help but come to her triumph and insisted on the trip. Accompanied by an escort of motorcyclists and accompanied by the howling of sirens in an ambulance, Frida arrived at the exhibition. The doctors carried her in on a stretcher and laid her on a couch in the center of the hall. There the woman spent the evening, meeting and entertaining guests with jokes. She told reporters: “I am not sick, but broken. But as long as I can hold a brush in my hands, I’m happy.”

Frida writes from the comfort of her hospital bed

This event shocked the whole world, but Frida staged an even greater posthumous show on July 13, 1954. When the artist’s fans came to the crematorium to say goodbye to Frida Kahlo, an unexpectedly strong gust of hot air lifted her body vertically, her hair rose into a halo, and her lips, as it seemed to everyone present, formed a mocking smile. She stood there for some time before plunging into the fire and turning to ash forever.
The official cause of death of the great artist was pneumonia, but there were also rumors of suicide. It was rumored that after the amputation of her legs, her pain became completely unbearable. Frida was again “imprisoned” in a corset, but the mutilated spine could not bear the load from the weight of the body. Frida always fought for her life. She simply couldn't give in voluntarily. She was a great woman, despite her terrible situation.

The brilliant Mexican artist Frida Kahlo was often called a female alter ego. Critics classified the author of the work “Wounded Deer” as a surrealist, but throughout her life she disowned this “stigma”, declaring that the basis of her work is not ephemeral allusions and a paradoxical combination of forms, and the pain of loss, disappointment and betrayal, passed through the prism of personal worldview.

Childhood and youth

Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo Calderon was born three years before the Mexican Revolution, on July 6, 1907, in the settlement of Coyoacan (a suburb of Mexico City). The artist's mother Matilda Calderon was an unemployed fanatical Catholic who kept her husband and children strictly, and her father Guillermo Calo, who idolized creativity and worked as a photographer.

At the age of 6, Frida suffered from polio, as a result of which her right leg became several centimeters thinner than her left. Constant ridicule from her peers (in her childhood she had the nickname “wooden leg”) only strengthened Magdalena’s character. To spite everyone, the girl, who was not used to being depressed, overcame pain, played football with the guys, went swimming and boxing classes. Kahlo also knew how to competently disguise her flaw. Long skirts, men's suits and stockings worn on top of each other helped her in this.

It is noteworthy that in her childhood Frida dreamed not of becoming an artist, but of becoming a doctor. At the age of 15, she even entered the National Preparatory School “Preparation”, where the young talent studied medicine for a couple of years. Lame-footed Frida was one of 35 girls who received an education along with thousands of boys.

In September 1925, an event occurred that turned Magdalena’s life upside down: the bus on which 17-year-old Kahlo was returning home collided with a tram. The metal railing pierced the girl’s stomach, pierced the uterus and came out in the groin area, the spine was broken in three places, and even three stockings could not save the leg, crippled by a childhood illness (the limb was broken in eleven places).

Frida Kahlo (right) with her sisters

The young lady lay unconscious in the hospital for three weeks. Despite the doctors' statements that the injuries received were incompatible with life, the father, unlike his wife, who never came to the hospital, did not leave his daughter a single step. Looking at Frida’s motionless body wrapped in a plaster corset, the man considered her every breath and exhalation a victory.

Contrary to the predictions of medical luminaries, Kahlo woke up. After returning from the other world, Magdalena felt an incredible craving for painting. The father made a special stretcher for his beloved child, which allowed him to create while lying down, and also attached a large mirror under the canopy of the bed so that his daughter could see herself and the space around her while creating works.

A year later, Frida made her first pencil sketch, “Crash,” in which she briefly sketched the disaster that crippled her physically and mentally. Having firmly found her feet, Kahlo entered the National Institute of Mexico in 1929, and in 1928 became a member of the Communist Party. At that time, her love for art reached its apogee: Magdalena sat at an easel in an art studio during the day, and in the evenings, dressed in an exotic outfit that hid her injuries, she went to parties.

Graceful, sophisticated Frida certainly held a glass of wine and a cigar in her hands. The obscene witticisms of the extravagant woman made guests of social events laugh non-stop. The contrast between the image of an impulsive, cheerful person and the paintings of that period imbued with a sense of hopelessness is striking. According to Frida herself, behind the chic of beautiful clothes and the gloss of pretentious phrases hid her crippled soul, which she showed to the world only on canvas.

Painting

Frida Kahlo became famous for her colorful self-portraits (70 paintings in total), the distinctive feature of which was a fused eyebrow and the absence of a smile on her face. The artist often framed her figure with national symbols (“Self-portrait on the border between Mexico and the USA”, “Self-portrait as Tehuana”), which she was excellent at understanding.

In her works, the artist was not afraid to expose both her own (“Without hope”, “My birth”, “Just a few scratches!”) and the suffering of others. In 1939, a fan of Kahlo’s work asked her to pay tribute to the memory of their mutual friend, actress Dorothy Hale (the girl committed suicide by jumping out of a window). Frida painted The Suicide of Dorothy Hale. The customer was horrified: instead of a beautiful portrait, consolation for her family, Magdalena depicted a scene of a fall and a lifeless body bleeding.

The work entitled “Two Fridas,” which the artist wrote after a short break with Diego, is also worthy of attention. Kahlo’s inner self is presented in the painting in two guises: Mexican Frida, whom Rivera madly loved, and European Frida, whom her lover rejected. The pain of loss is expressed through the image of a bleeding artery connecting the hearts of two ladies.

World fame came to Kahlo when the first exhibition of her works took place in New York in 1938. However, the artist’s rapidly deteriorating health also affected her work. The more often Frida lay on the operating table, the darker her paintings became (“Thinking of Death”, “Mask of Death”). In the post-operative periods, canvases were created, full of echoes of biblical stories - “The Broken Column” and “Moses, or the Core of Creation.”

By the opening of an exhibition of her work in Mexico in 1953, Kahlo could no longer move independently. The day before the presentation, all the paintings were hung, and the beautifully decorated bed where Magdalena lay down became a full-fledged part of the exhibition. A week before her death, the artist painted the still life “Long Live Life,” which reflected her attitude towards death.

Kahlo's paintings had a huge influence on modern painting. One of the exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago was dedicated to Magdalena's influence on the art world and included works by contemporary artists for whom Frida became a source of inspiration and role model. The exhibition was titled “Footloose: Contemporary Art after Frida Kahlo.”

Personal life

While still a student, Kahlo met her future husband, Mexican artist Diego Rivera. In 1929, their paths crossed again. The following year, the 22-year-old girl became the legal wife of the 43-year-old painter. Contemporaries jokingly called the marriage of Diego and Frida the union of an elephant and a dove (the famous artist was much taller and fatter than his wife). The man was teased as a “toad prince,” but no woman could resist his charm.

Magdalena knew about her husband's infidelity. In 1937, the artist herself began an affair with, whom she affectionately called “the goat” because of his gray hair and beard. The fact is that the couple were zealous communists and, out of the kindness of their hearts, sheltered a revolutionary who had fled from Russia. It all ended in a loud scandal, after which Trotsky hastily left their house. Kahlo was also credited with an affair with a famous poet.

Without exception, all Frida's amorous stories are shrouded in mystery. Among the artist's alleged lovers was singer Chavela Vargas. The reason for the gossip was the candid photographs of the girls, in which Frida, dressed in a man’s suit, was drowned in the arms of the artist. However, Diego, who openly cheated on his wife, did not pay attention to her hobbies for representatives of the weaker half of humanity. Such connections seemed frivolous to him.

Despite the fact that the married life of the two fine art stars was not exemplary, Kahlo did not stop dreaming of children. True, due to injuries, the woman was never able to experience the happiness of motherhood. Frida tried again and again, but all three pregnancies ended in miscarriage. After another loss of a child, she took up a brush and began to paint children (“Henry Ford Hospital”), mostly dead ones - this is how the artist tried to come to terms with her tragedy.

Death

Kahlo died a week after celebrating her 47th birthday (July 13, 1954). The cause of the artist's death was pneumonia. At Frida's funeral, which took place with all pomp at the Palace of Fine Arts, in addition to Diego Rivera, there were painters, writers and even former Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas. The body of the author of the painting “What the Water Gave Me” was cremated, and the urn with the ashes remains to this day in the Frida Kahlo House Museum. The last words in her diary were:

“I hope that leaving will be successful and I will not return again.”

In 2002, Hollywood director Julia Taymor presented the autobiographical film “Frida” to film lovers, the plot of which was based on the story of the life and death of the great artist. The role of Kahlo was played by an Oscar winner, theater and film actress.

Literary writers Hayden Herrera, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio and Andrea Kettenmann have also written books about the fine art star.

Works

• "My Birth"
• "Mask of Death"
• "Fruits of the Earth"
• “What did the water give me?”
• "Dream"
• “Self-Portrait” (“Diego in Thoughts”)
• "Moses" ("Core of Creation")
• "Little Doe"
• "Embrace of Universal Love, Earth, Me, Diego and Coatl"
• "Self-portrait with Stalin"
• "Without Hope"
• "Nurse and Me"
• "Memory"
• "Henry Ford Hospital"
• "Double Portrait"

The paintings of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo are famous all over the world. Our review today includes five of her self-portraits. On them, the artist allegorically depicted her inner experiences, the pain she had to go through after surviving two difficult events - a car accident and a divorce from her beloved husband Diego Rivera.

Among the main themes of Frida Kahlo’s work, art critics name the following: interest in her ancestors and what kind of legacy Frida can leave for future generations, as well as a reflection of the struggle with infertility and her own femininity. In the self-portraits that we will look at in our review, Frida reinterprets two key events from her biography: an accident that happened to her in her youth and the breakdown of her relationship with Diego Rivera.

Self-portrait with a necklace of thorns and hummingbirds, 1940

During her life, Frida painted 55 self-portraits, among which the most famous is “Self-Portrait with a Necklace of Thorns and Hummingbirds.” Frida completed this portrait in 1940 exactly a year after the painful breakup with her lover, the Mexican artist Diego Rivera. In the painting, the artist depicted herself with a panther and a monkey. The choice of these animals is due, among other things, to the fact that during their family life Frida and Diego kept monkeys in the house as pets. Evil tongues said that this is how they compensate for the lack of children.

The center of attention is a decoration made of lifeless thorns. Withered branches entwine Frida's neck, causing her suffering, digging into her skin with thorns. In reality, Frida steadfastly endured the divorce process, so she chose such a symbol to convey internal emotions and experiences.

Two Fridas, 1939

“Two Fridas” is another self-portrait, painted during the period of separation from Diego. Internal dualism and experiences are reflected in two completely different female images. On the left is a girl with a broken heart, dressed in European style. On the right is her antipode: her heart is intact and beating, and she herself is in a traditional Mexican dress (Frida preferred this kind of clothing after her wedding to Diego).

The picture shows the connection between the girls: they hold hands, and they are also connected by a bleeding artery. On the left, Frida has clamped the vessel with medical forceps; on the right, the artery is connected to a tiny medallion with a portrait of Diego (many viewers miss this important detail).
This self-portrait is an illustration of Frida’s internal struggle, the difficult thoughts that preceded accepting the divorce and coming to terms with the situation. “I never write dreams or nightmares. I write my own reality,” she said.

Self-portrait with cropped hair, 1940

The masculine image is dictated by the same love experiences. Frida is sitting on a yellow chair with scissors in her hands, she has short hair and is wearing a man's suit. Around her are cropped curls. Above her image are lines from a Mexican song, which translated mean the following: “Look, even if I loved you, it was for your hair. Now they are gone, and I don’t love you anymore.”

Kahlo, whom we are used to seeing with long hair, in flowing dresses and large jewelry, suddenly chose an androgynous image for herself. This had happened to her before, in real life, not fictional life. In her youth, Frida often wore men's suits; in early photographs she can be seen in men's suits, even when her relatives and friends wore feminine dresses.

Broken Column, 1944

Comparing two tragic events in her life, Frida admitted that the divorce from Diego turned out to be worse than the disaster. In 1925, at the age of 18, she was in a car accident and suffered a serious spinal injury, which left her bedridden for a long time. The broken column is an image of her own broken body.

The self-portrait reflected the hardships endured during treatment. The shackles and metal frame are an allusion to the corset that had to be worn, to the broken spine. The naked body is also a reference to the “hospital past”, constant examinations by doctors. Frida creates the image of a martyr, into whose body dozens of nails are pierced, this is a clear connection with the traditions of icon painting and the image of the crucified Christ.

In 1929, Kahlo painted “The Bus.” These are memories of what she saw a second before the incident. The artist’s memory preserved this exciting moment.

Wounded deer, 1946

The self-portrait, in which Frida depicted herself as a deer, whose body is pierced by arrows, is thematically close to the painting “Broken Column.” This is a reflection on the emotional and physical pain experienced, which accompanied the process of long rehabilitation.

The choice of animal was due to the fact that Frida had a fawn named Granizo. In the foreground of the painting is a broken branch, an image that recurs in Mexican funerary discourse. It is obvious that the deer in the picture is doomed to death. During this period, Frida's health deteriorated greatly, she developed gangrene, required amputation, and constantly experienced pain throughout her body.

Both paintings - “The Wounded Deer” and “The Broken Column” - were painted in the tradition of Christian icon painting. According to the Bible, Saint Sebastian was shot with arrows, and the story of his martyrdom has inspired many artists over the centuries.

Frida Kahlo died in 1954. As a keepsake of her, there are paintings that still preserve her experiences, unspoken pain, and reveal to us the inner world of this infinitely talented artist.

A love story is an incredible example of how a loving person, even suffering from physical pain, knows how to prioritize not his own experiences, but his feelings for another person.

An artist who left a bright mark on history in spite of everything, controversial, bright, hysterically frank and unhappy, possessing everything and nothing at the same time. Icon of feminists and representatives of sexual minorities. Kahlo Frida.

Early years

Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907 in Mexico City. As the third child in a family of a “Jewish” German and a Mexican mother with an Indian child, she grew up without any worries until she contracted polio at the age of 6.

She was not able to heal completely, as the disease withered her right leg, causing lameness, which Frida hid until her last days with the help of trousers and long skirts of national dresses. Frida Kahlo (her biography shows this) only hardened herself from these adversities, despite her young age. Despite everything, the future artist decided to lead the most active life possible, attending sports clubs and preparing to become a doctor. Eyewitnesses claim that they could not believe the problems with her leg, as Kahlo “moved through the corridors with the swiftness of a swallow.” It would seem that the problems have been overcome, there is a future and endless scope for activity ahead, but fate decided otherwise.

Accident

At the age of 18, Kahlo Frida was involved in a car accident - the bus in which she was traveling with her friend was rammed by a tram. The companion escaped with minor injuries, while the artist herself suffered almost everything possible, among the main injuries were: a fracture of the spine in three places, a practically crushed pelvis and foot, and broken ribs. Among other things, an iron rod pierced her stomach, reducing the possibility of ever becoming a mother to a minimum. Contrary to all predictions, Frida once again showed up and survived. Over the course of many years, she underwent more than thirty operations, was bedridden, and covered in plaster. Cynical and scary is the fact that it was because of this tragedy that the girl first picked up a brush. out of loneliness and thoughts that tore apart her mind, she began to paint self-portraits.

It was not easy to do this lying down, but a special stretcher and a mirror located above the bed helped in this endeavor. Subsequently, the artist Frida Kahlo expressed most of her torment and aspirations in self-portraits; all her work was built on them. Such a step was not due to narcissism. Judge for yourself: for endless minutes, hours, days, she was left to herself, digging, learning, looking. All that flow of emotions, strength and despair through which she perceived the world was reflected in her. The face on the canvas as a mediator between the external and the internal. Quarrelsome, funny, harsh and outrageously frank, the center of joy and life - this is how those around her saw her, but the real Frida Kahlo (paintings, photos, diaries will not let you lie) was gnawing at herself from the inside, trying to snatch from fate what was due to her.

Diego

The inner core, the hardness of which even titanium would envy, did not fail this time either - Frida got to her feet, but did not give up painting. Every step, every breath she took was now accompanied by constant pain, but nothing mattered - she endured it and was ready to move on. Kahlo found herself in the brush, but lacked self-confidence, so she decided to seek advice from an artist already known at that time. Again, a mockery of fate - she went to get stronger and find confidence, but found the greatest pain of her life.

Diego was impressed both by the paintings and by the artist herself, and after some time he asked Frida’s father for her hand. All the love, trepidation and emotions of the moment were absorbed by Frida Kahlo’s diary, which she kept for the rest of her life. The Kahlo couple even perceived the possibility of such a union with indignation, calling it “a marriage between an elephant and a dove,” and this was not an exaggeration - Rivera was two decades older, a hundred pounds heavier and generally had the appearance of a good-natured cannibal. However, due to his incredible charisma, talent and sense of humor, he was known as a conqueror of women’s hearts, which is why “ogre” practically became his middle name - he tied and devoured beautiful and talented women. After another serious conversation with his beloved’s father, officially accepting and recognizing the fact that Frida would have precarious health for the rest of her life and would never give him children, the “ogre” received a blessing for the marriage. Eyewitnesses claim that the wedding itself was the quintessence of their future life - a fragile bride in a national costume, lavishly decorated with her favorite jewelry and flowers, and an elephant-like groom, a celebration of madness and Rivera's ex-wife, who lifted up Kahlo's skirt in front of everyone, exclaiming: “Look, what matches did Diego exchange mine for? The apotheosis was the finger of one of the guests, which the groom accidentally shot off in a fit of frustration. Truly, whatever you call the yacht, so it will float.

Living together

It was a volcano, without exaggeration. Kahlo Frida, passionate and passionate, practically idolized her husband, recognizing his talent, but at the same time allowing herself to point out flaws in his work. Diego got mad, destroyed everything that came to hand, and left the house, but always returned. To be fair, it is worth noting that he did not raise his hand to his wife, although he had not disdained such gestures before - he almost stabbed one of his mistresses, who bore him a daughter. This is probably due to the fact that he recognized her as an equal - both in spirit and in talent. However, this did not stop him from ruffling the skirts of all the women that crossed his path. Frida Kahlo, whose photo you can see below, was tormented, suffered, but did not stop loving.

Five years of dancing together on a powder keg ended in a noisy breakup, but they never learned to live separately from each other - a year later they got back together. The husband's infidelities continued, as did the wife's torment. In an effort to somehow take revenge, the artist also went on a rampage, letting both men and women into her bed. Naturally, Diego tore and threw, because, in his opinion, what is available to Jupiter is not allowed to the bull.

Leon Trotsky

Frida Kahlo, whose biography is very dramatic, together with her husband was an ardent admirer of ideology. In 1936, the latter, persecuted by Stalin, set his feet to hot, hospitable Mexico at the invitation of Rivera in order to honor his followers with his presence. However, upon arrival they were met by Frida, since the day before her husband had been hospitalized with kidney inflammation.

Having escorted them to her ancestral home, she, driven by the desire to hurt her husband more, decided to test her charms on Trotsky. Surprisingly, Leo succumbed, replacing revolutionary fever with baser emotions. The piquancy of the situation was added by the fact that he came to visit with his wife, managing to cheat on her with Kahlo almost under her nose. He became an ally in this matter since the wife spoke only Russian, but the woman could not ignore the intensity of the air and the glances that her husband threw at the artist. All this led to a break in relations between the Trotsky couple, after which Lev moved to the estate of a friend of Rivera. He wrote letter after letter to Frida, encountering a lukewarm response. The revolutionary was anything but blind. Having accepted the fact that Kahlo Frida did not want him, he asked to return to his wife. The trip to Mexico became fatal for Trotsky - in 1940 he was killed by an NKVD officer.

Creation

All of Kahlo’s works are distinguished by their bright individuality; it is impossible to single out a single mediocre painting, no matter the canvas, it is a nugget. However, in everything she wrote, there is the bitterness of hopes that are not destined to come true. Somewhere it is frank, somewhere it is barely noticeable, drowned out by an ode to nature in all its riot and triumph of life. Pain and passion seemed to become her brushes. Whatever the work, there is juiciness, violence, excess and such a chilling depth that you can read the story on your lips. These are not so much the paintings that Frida Kahlo wrote, but rather books in which the whole tragedy of a restless soul is written out syllable by syllable. Let's look at some of her paintings that reflect the moment.

Henry Ford Hospital

This painting, painted in 1932, is the focus of Frida Kahlo's pain as a woman and mother.

The canvas depicts the artist herself, who lost her child in this ill-fated hospital. Due to the monstrous injuries suffered after the accident, Kahlo was not able to bear the baby, however, despite her fragile health and the warnings of doctors, she became pregnant three times, each time hoping for a miracle that never happened. The work shows us Frida lying on a sparse hospital bed, covered in blood. The body is round, still retaining the memory of being prepared to feed a child. Three ribbons that connect the artist with an unborn child, a snail - the slow progress of pregnancy, and the pelvic bones that caused the tragedy. In the background is dry, soulless America, which cannot give peace. The real Frida Kahlo also shows stingy anguish. Photos from that period show pursed lips, eyebrows like the wings of an alarmed bird and endless hopelessness in dark eyes.

A Few Small Nips

And this picture, created in 1935, fully describes what happened to Kahlo during her life with Rivera.

Another confirmation of this is her phrase in which she described two accidents in her life - the bus and Diego.

The Two Fridas

With her work, which appeared in 1939, Kahlo Frida showed an ambivalent sense of self.

On the one hand, a healthy woman, full of strength, possibilities and hopes, which an artist could become not only in her soul, but also in reality, on the other, a harsh, weakened reality. Moreover, they have a common circulatory system, they are one.

End

In the forties, Kahlo finally gave up. Her health became worse and worse; due to gangrene, her leg was amputated, but this did not help avoid the end - on July 13, 1954, the artist died.

The strength of her spirit did not leave her even for a minute; eight days before her death, she managed to complete the painting, glorifying the life that she did not have time to fully enjoy.

Present day

History is kind to those who had the courage to break out and prove themselves, even if they got burned along the way. The family estate in Mexico, which became the beginning and end for the artist, is now the Frida Kahlo Museum, which houses an urn with her ashes. The furnishings and general atmosphere of the house are carefully preserved in order to convey to descendants at least a piece of the spirit, life and light that was inherent in Kahlo during his lifetime. The memory of Frida does not lose ground - films are made about her, both documentaries and feature films. There are also strange phenomena - recently a photo leaked online showing the artist next to the Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. It caused a stir, biographers tried to rummage through all those written confirmations of the heroes’ movements, photos, in order to find out whether their meeting could actually happen.

Until now, they have not come to a common denominator, but there is a high probability that the photograph, which depicts a half-naked armed Frida Kahlo and Mayakovsky on the left hand, is not a fake. Regardless of how true the photo is, the mesmerizing attractiveness of this couple is difficult to deny.

Self-portraits.
Therefore, by placing here all of Kahlo’s self-portraits from my collection of reproductions, I will just go through her life “dotted line”, citing those facts and lines about the self-portraits themselves that I considered interesting.

Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo
Full name - Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderon

Frida Kahlo (photo)

Mexican artist, wife of artist Diego Rivera.
Frida Kahlo's style combines elements of surrealism and Mexican folk art.
At the age of eighteen, on September 17, 1925, she was involved in a car accident: her bus collided with a tram, and a broken iron rod from the tram's current collector stuck in her stomach and came out at her groin, shattering her hip bone. The girl received multiple injuries and fractures and had to spend about a year in the hospital.

Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait 1922

Frida was bored in the hospital, and she asked her father to bring a brush and paints. A special stretcher was made for Frida, which allowed her to write while lying down. A large mirror was attached under the canopy of the bed so that Frida could see herself. She started with self-portraits, which became the most important theme in her work.
Frida presented her physical suffering and mental experiences in numerous self-portraits (one of the reasons for which was the inability to have children).

The style of the first portraits (for example, "Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress", 1926) was influenced by Mexican portraiture of the 19th century, originating in European fine art.

Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress 1926 Alejandro Gomez Aries Collection Mexico City

1930s

Kahlo painted 142 paintings during her life, 55 of them were self-portraits.
The artist herself explained it this way: “I paint myself because I spend a lot of time alone and because I am the topic that I know best.”
She spoke of herself as a woman who “gave birth to herself.”
Over the next thirty years, Frida underwent 32 operations, and health problems remained with her throughout her life.

In 1928, she showed her works to the already venerable artist Diego Rivera.
“It was obvious to me that this girl was a born artist,” the seasoned artist will say.
The following year they got married. The marriage was not cloudless: both were hot-tempered, with a hot southern temperament.
The couple spent 4 years in the USA, where Diego carried out orders, and Frida suffered several unsuccessful pregnancies.
After her second miscarriage, she painted Henry Ford Hospital (1932).

Frida Kahlo Henry Ford Hospital 1932

A snail hovers above the head of the bed. This is a symbol of the slow progress of a failed pregnancy. The purple orchid shown in the center under the bed was brought to the hospital by Diego. Although the motifs of the painting are depicted carefully and in detail, the composition as a whole avoids realistic life-like appearance.
For Frida, it is much more important to convey an emotional state than to capture a real situation. She depicted reality not as she saw it, but as she felt it.

Self-portraits served Frida as a means of expressing emotions, experiences and pain - both physical and mental.
These very personal images reflect her state of mind and inner world.
In self-portraits, Kahlo often appears from the same angle. Her face with thick dark eyebrows often resembles a mask. In addition, she painted herself both in full growth and in a fictitious surreal environment.

Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait 1930 Museum of Fine Arts Boston
Frida Kahlo Frida and Diego Rivera 1931 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait on the Mexican-US Border 1932 Manuel Reyero Collection New York

In “Self-Portrait on the Border between Mexico and the United States” (1932), Frida expressed her views and thoughts of that period, her attitude towards America, and showed her isolation from her homeland.
She stands like a statue on a pedestal, on the border between two different worlds.
On the left is a landscape of ancient Mexico, ruled by the forces of nature and natural life cycles. On the right we see a North American landscape dominated by technology.
Frida holds a Mexican flag in one hand and a cigarette in the other. The clouds in the Mexican sky echo the plumes of smoke billowing from the chimneys of Ford's factories, while lush vegetation on the left gives way to specimens of electrical equipment on the right, whose wires turn into roots that suck energy from the ground. And Frida is torn between these two opposites.

Frida Kahlo Frida in the operating room 1932
Frida Kahlo My Nurse and Me 1937
Frida Kahlo Memory 1937

Frida Kahlo's self-portraits helped her form an idea of ​​herself and find a path to self-knowledge. The artist's face almost always does not show feelings and mood. Her works should be seen as metaphorical summaries of specific experiences. She draws techniques from Mexican folk art and pre-Columbian culture.

Frida Kahlo self-portrait with beads 1933 Gelman Collection Mexico City
Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait with Kama 1937 Gelman Collection, USA
Frida Kahlo Self-portraits with a letter to Leon Trotsky 1937 National Museum Women in Art USA

In not a single self-portrait does Frida Kahlo smile: a serious, even mournful face, fused thick eyebrows, a barely noticeable mustache above tightly compressed sensual lips.
The ideas of her paintings are encrypted in the details, background, figures appearing next to Frida. Kahlo's symbolism is based on national traditions and is closely connected with the Indian mythology of the pre-Spanish period, since Frida brilliantly knew the history of her homeland.

Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait with Monkey 1938 Albrecht Gallery Knox de Buffalo New York
Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait 1938 National Museum of Modern Art Center Georges Pompidou Paris
Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait with Dog 1938 Private collection

After returning to Mexico at the end of 1933, a serious conflict arose between Kahlo and Rivera over the latter's numerous love affairs.
Frida existed at the intersection of race, gender and sexuality. She was born to a white father - a Hungarian Jew originally from Germany, and a Mexican woman of mixed blood, including Indian. Frida described herself as a racial and sexual “mestiza” - a mestizo.
In 1935, Kahlo left their common home. In 1938, she divorced Rivera.
One of her self-portraits is called “Two Fridas”: the Mexican and European Fridas in it are connected by one heart for two.
The painting was painted in 1939 after her divorce from Diego; in this self-portrait, the artist shows her experiences and the state of mind of an abandoned woman.

Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait. Two Fridas. 1939 Museum of Modern Art Mexico City USA

This is how the picture is described on the website lookatme.ru(I note that the descriptions of many paintings are taken from here):

“That part of her being that Diego Rivera respected and loved - the Mexican Frida in a Tehuan dress - holds in her hands a medallion with a portrait of her husband as a child. Sitting next to her is her alter ego, European Frida in a lace white dress. The hearts of the two women are exposed, connected only by one thin artery. Along with the loss of her lover, European Frida lost a part of herself. Blood drips from the newly severed artery, held in place only by a surgical clamp. There is a danger that the rejected Frida may bleed to death."

1940s

In 1939, André Breton and Marcel Duchamp organized an exhibition of Frida's works in Paris.
It was held in the famous gallery of Renu and Collet, but in Europe there was already a smell of war, so the exhibition was not a financial success. Because of this, Frida canceled her next exhibition at the Guggenheim Gallery in London. Nevertheless, Frida’s painting “Self-Portrait “Rama”” (1937) became the first work by a 20th-century Mexican artist to be acquired by the Louvre.
Experts believe that the forties were the artist’s heyday, the time of her most interesting and mature works.

Frida Kahlo Dream 1940 private collection, New York

Frida often painted herself with a masculine, stern expression and an exaggerated mustache—and yet in a feminine outfit and pose. In her youth, she dressed in men's clothing and was depicted as such in several family portraits. Later, the game of dressing up was repeated during her divorce from Rivera, in the painting “Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair” (1940), where Frida depicted herself in a man’s suit and with cropped hair, but in women’s shoes and earrings, as if combining the feminine and masculine principles, serving as a bridge between the sexes.
In Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair, Frida demonstrated her independence, gained after her divorce.

Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair 1940 Museum of Contemporary Art. New York
Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait 1940 Gelman Collection, USA
Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait 1940
Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait with Letter to Dr. Elosser 1940 Private collection

Frida decided to plunge into work. Over the next few years, a series of self-portraits appeared, differing solely in attributes, background, and color scheme, through which the artist’s mood was expressed.

Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait with Hummingbird 1940 University of Texas Museum USA
Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait with Braids 1941 Natasha Gelman Collection Mexico City
Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait with My Parrots 1941 Private Collection New Orleans
Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait 1941 Gelman Collection, USA

The self-portrait "Roots" was painted by Frida Kahlo in oil on sheet metal in 1943 after her remarriage to Diego Rivera. In 2006, at Sotheby's auction in New York, the painting was sold for 5 and a half million dollars.

Frida Kahlo Roots 1943 Marilyn Lubetkin Collection

Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait 1943 private collection
Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait with Monkeys 1943 Gelman Collection Mexico City
Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait of Diego in Thoughts 1943 Jacob and Natasha Gelman Collection Mexico City
Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait. Broken Column 1944 Dolores Olmedo Collection Mexico City

In 1943, Frida began teaching at the School of Painting and Sculpture, but after a few months, due to poor health, she had to wear a steel corset and conduct classes at home.
This corset became the center of her self-portrait “Broken Column” (1944).
Art critics give the following description of the image:
The corset straps seem to be the only thing holding parts of the body, cracked in half, upright. An Ionic column, broken into several pieces, takes the place of the damaged spine. The lifeless, cracked landscape echoes the gaping crack in her body, which becomes a symbol of her pain and loneliness. The nails stuck into the face and body invoke images of the martyrdom of St. Sebastian, pierced by arrows. The white cloth wrapped around the hips echoes the Shroud of Christ. She borrows elements from Christian iconography to give a particularly dramatic expression to her pain and suffering.

Frida Kahlo Little Doe. Self-portrait. 1946 Caroline Farb Houston USA Collection

In 1946, Kahlo underwent surgery in New York, but it did not help. After an unsuccessful attempt at a cure, Kahlo painted a painting imagining herself as a deer mortally wounded by arrows (The Wounded Deer, 1946).

Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait 1946 Private collection Mexico City
Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait with Flowing Hair 1947 private collection
Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait 1948 Private collection
Frida Kahlo Diego and I 1949 Marie Anna Martin Gallery New York