Famous people close to Frida Kahlo

Born in 1907, Magdalena Frida Kahlo grew up in Mexico City in a blue house/Casa Azul built by her father. Fath­er Guill­ermo Kah­lo was a Ger­m­an-Jewish photo­grapher and moth­er, Matil­de Cald­erón, indig­enous and Cat­holic Spanish. At 6 Kahlo contracted polio, rendering her right leg perm­an­ently smaller. More than a fashion statement emphasising Mexico, long skirts became Kahlo’s modest uniform. In any case, Frida’s father trained her in his photog­raphy studio. 

Frida Kahlo painting in bed.

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In high school Frida studied biology, anatomy and zoology at one of Mexico City’s best schools, one of only 35 girls. But then a troll­ley car collided with the bus she was taking home, forever derail­ing her health. Could she have made a good physician? Instead she became a painter of striking auto-biographical canvases. However some works did look medical eg The Broken Column, 1944.

This Mexican artist produced c200 paintings, mostly self-portraits, depictions of family and friends, and c30 still lifes. Fig­ur­ative and very personal, her paintings fused folklore and symbol­ism to illustrate her own experiences.

In 1922 Kahlo started studying at Mexico City’s Escuela Nacional Pre­paratoria with a focus on sciences and became part of a group of communist activist students. During her years there the big three Mexican artists, incl­ud­ing Diego Rivera, all worked on murals at her school. Kahlo met Rivera briefly when he was painting in the school amphitheatre.

In 1925, Kahlo and friend were on a bus that collided with a tram. Some passengers were killed; Kahlo suffered fract­ures of her spine, right leg, collarbone and pelvis. Hospitalised for ages, Ka­hlo was fitted with a plaster corset (to wear for the rest of her life). Alas she later had mult­iple miscarriages and underwent 30+ surgical procedures.

During her long recovery, Kahlo painted using a compact eas­el and mirror that her mother installed under her 4-poster bed. She began with the most readily available subject: herself, using self-portraits to ill­us­trate her inner world in distinct moments in her life.

After her recovery Kahlo again met Rivera through an Italian photographer friend, Tina Modotti. Riv­era was by then an established artist. 20 years older than Kahlo, they married in Aug 1929, forming an unst­able but lasting union. They each had affairs, sometimes with the same people. Kahlo’s li­aisons included Russian revolutionary Leon Trot­sky (who temporarily lived in the Casa Azul) and Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi.

Kahlo and Rivera spent their early married years in US, with a recent book Frida in America (2020) suggesting that Kahlo exp­er­ienced her creative awakening in New York, Detroit & San Francisco. Her marriage self-portrait, Frida and Diego Rivera (1931) showed her much smaller than Rivera!

Frida and Diego Rivera, 

100 cm × 79 cm, 1931

San Francisco Mus of Mod Art

She put forward distinct bohemian and left­ politics, the image that still makes her a pop culture icon now. A new document­ary will premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Kahlo entranced many key C20th photographers, including Julien Levy and Dora Maar, who left images that still fascinate us.

Edward Weston was one of many artists Kahlo befriended while in the US. After arriving in San Francisco she met famous photographer Dor­othea Lange, who shared her studio and introduced Kahlo to Dr Leo Eloesser.  The doctor diagnosed her injuries and remained a trusted friend.

Rivera was the spouse sought out for mural comm­is­s­ions and other projects, because Kahlo was still emerging as an art­ist. Some thought she was the better painter, but she never got the credit. A 1933 article in a Detroit newspaper headlined Wife of the Mas­­ter Mural Painter Glee­fully Dabbles in Art, placing Kahlo firmly behind Rivera. Dabbles?

Kahlo’s career changed in 1938 as her work began to gain recog­nit­ion. She made her first sale that year when actor-collector Ed­ward G Robinson visited Rivera’s studio. Robinson saw Kah­lo’s paintings and bought 4 canvases for $200 each. Kahlo was thrilled.

 

Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas, 1939

The traditional Frida in Tehuana costume has a broken heart, 

sitting next to an independent, modern dressed Frida.

Frida Kahlo.org

18 paintings travelled directly from New York to Paris when Kahlo participated in a 1939 group show of Mexican art at the Pierre Colle Gallery. The show was arranged by Andre Breton with help from Mar­cel Duchamp, whom Kahlo described honourably.

Some months later Kahlo had her 1st solo show, exhibiting 25 paintings at New York’s Jul­ien Levy Gallery. The Nov opening drew an A-list crowd inc­luding Alfred Stieglitz, curator Alfred H Barr, art historian Meyer Schap­iro and Georgia O’Keeffe (whom Kahlo befriended in N.Y trip). André Breton, who'd met Kahlo in Me­x­ico, wrote her catalogue essay. Time mag­­azine reviewed the show well!

One work in the exhibition was a self-portrait The Frame (1938), acquired by France and now in The Centre Pom­p­idou. Other Ka­hlo works got into star collections eg New York’s Mus­eum Modern Art, SFMOMA, Mexico City’s Museo de Arte Moderno and National Museum of Women in the Arts.

When Kahlo returned from France, she found Rivera with another woman. So she left their marital home to go back to the Casa Azul. By late 1939 they agreed to divorce, prompt­ing her large canvas The Two Fridas. When Kahlo’s health suffered post-divorce, Dr Eloesser advised the couple recon­cile. They rem­ar­ried in San Francisco, Dec 1940.

Frida Kahlo, The Broken Column, 1944

Frida Kahlo.org

In Mexico City, Kahlo’s work was shown in group exhibitions in the 1940s, includ­ing C20th Port­r­aits at the Museum of Modern Art in 1942 and Exhib­it­ion by 31 Women at Peggy Guggenheim’s Art Gall­ery in 1943. She soon started teaching at Mexico City’s School of Painting & Sculpture, moving classes to the Casa Az­ul when her health declined.

Her 2nd solo show was in summer 1953 in Mexico City at Lola Álvarez Bravo’s Gallery of Con­temporary Art. Now in very poor health, Kahlo was delivered to the opening night festiv­it­ies on a stretcher and then placed in her bed IN the gallery. So crit­ics tended to react host­ile­ly, as if they res­ent­ed the at­mosph­ere of awe. The same year, Kahlo’s right leg was amputated and even then, Kahlo remained a dedicated leftist. She did port­raits of Marx and Stalin, and attended demonstrat­ions. And she changed her birth to 1910, coinciding with her be­lov­ed Mexican Revolution.

Kahlo was addicted to alcohol and painkillers. So when she died at Casa Azul  (47) in 1954, was it pulmonary em­bol­ism or suicide? Her casket was installed in Palacio de Bellas Artes. Casa Azul became her house-museum post-death. Now a pilgrimage site, it includes her own folk art, bed and art material,  and an easel from Nelson Rockefeller.