Artist of the Week :Frida Kahlo

Happy Sunday! I decided to start an "Artist of the Week " post to do on Sundays!It's a good way to learn more about the  different styles of each artist.

This week in keeping with my Mexico theme, I will feature the  fabulous   Frida Kahlo :

Frida was born on  July 6th, 1907 in Coyoacan, Mexico to a

Hungarian-Jewish father and a mother of Spanish and Mexican Indian descent. She was one of four daughters.

Frida did not plan to become an artist .She had been studying Medicine at the " Escuela Nacional Preparatoria" in Mexico City. Out of 2000 students, Frida was one of only 35 women accepted into the prestigious institution. However in 1925  at the age she was severely injured in a bus accident in  which she suffers fractures to her spine, collarbone and ribs, a shattered pelvis, and shoulder and foot injuries.

While she is bed-ridden and encased in a body cast  Frida began to paint lying in bed with a special easel rigged up by her mother. With the help of a mirror, Kahlo began painting her best known subject: herself. 

She was quoted as saying

"I paint myself because I am so often alone, because I am the subject I know best."  

Although Frida did recover from her injuries she underwent at least 30 operations in her life time .She had relapses of tremendous pain and fatigue all throughout her life, which caused her to be hospitalized for long periods of time. At times Frida turned to drugs ,alcohol and cigarettes to ease her immense physical suffering.

The love of her life...

At the age of 21 twenty-one, she married the world-famous mural-artist Diego Rivera (the 1st time) Their love was  inspired by mutual beliefs and passions. However the relationship was turbulent and Diego was not able to stay faithful. Frida was known to be bi-sexual & to have affairs with both men and women. After Diego's affair with Frida's younger sister,Cristina ,the couple divorced in November 1939  only to remarry in December 1940.

Frida suffered the effects of the accident her whole life long, and was intensely aggrieved by her inability to bear children for Diego.
THE ART:
Frida let out all of her emotions on a canvas. She painted her anger and hurt over her stormy marriage, the painful miscarriages, and the physical suffering she underwent because of the accident. physical & emotinal pain is  very  much present in her art.

"Also known as The Flying Bed, this is arguably the most painful self portrait that Frida Kahlo ever painted. Not only had she just suffered her second miscarriage, she was also beginning to realize that she could never carry a pregnancy to term"

"The two Fridas"

This  double self portrait by Frida was painted around the time time of her divorce with Diego Rivera. Kahlo wore her heart on her sleeve when she painted, in this case almost literally. In the Frida wearing a green dress, she holds a small portrait of Diego Rivera.
"Roots"

This Video shows her self portraits "morhhing".Very cool effect!

Frida Kahlo was a charismatic if a bit eccentric woman.She lived her life with intensity and her vocabulary could be as colorful as her paintings.Passion propelled her! She loved to drink tequila and sing off color songs to guests at the crazy parties she hosted. She loved telling dirty jokes and shocking everyone around her.


Frida passed away on July 13, 1954. The official cause of death was pulmonary embolism set on by pneumonia, but some have speculated that she overdosed on pain killers...

Her last words in her diary read:
"I hope the leaving is joyful and I hope never to return".
"Despite her physical ailments, a life of chronic pain, and scores of surgeries to put her back together again, Kahlo's talents as a painter were irrepressible."

It's best summed up by the love of Kahlo's life, Mexican painter Diego Rivera.


"I recommend her to you, not as a husband but as an enthusiastic admirer of her work," he once said to Picasso. "Acid and tender, hard as steel and delicate and fine as a butterfly's wing, lovable as a beautiful smile, and profound and cruel as the bitterness of life."

Frida Kahlo said "Since my subjects have always been my sensations, my states of mind and the profound reactions that life has been producing in me, I have frequently objectified all this in figures of myself, which were the most sincere and real thing that I could do in order to express what I felt inside and outside of myself."

This si a hand made Frida themed postcard I made recently for a swap-bot swap.