The Life and Art of Frida Kahlo
“I have broken many social norms. I have not regretted the things that I have done. I have enjoyed being contradictory.”1 These are the words of Mexican painter, Frida Kahlo as compiled from interviews done in 1949 and 1950 by Frida’s longtime friend, Olga Campos. These words seem to mirror both Frida’s political beliefs as well as her artistic stance. Throughout her career, Frida Kahlo pushed the boundaries of what was expected from a traditional Latin American female artist. Frida led a life full of emotional and physical pain. From an early diagnosis of polio, to a life altering bus accident, to a marriage riddled with infidelities, Frida’s often-difficult life was the inspiration for her art. Her exploration of herself and the world she lived in broke social norms, artistically, and politically, causing both outrage and awe from those who viewed her paintings. However, throughout her life, Frida’s most interesting and prolific subject seems to be herself.
Frida Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907 in the town of Coyoacan on the outskirts of Mexico City, the fourth of five children. Frida was born after the death of the only son in her family. After her birth, Frida’s mother fell into a deep depression and handed over the care and nurturing of Frida to a nanny. The nanny, however, was drinking while breastfeeding Frida and offered little nurturing or care.2 Some have theorized that this early lack of bonding led Frida to lack a sense of self as an adult. Without the care and direction of a caring adult figure, Frida had to create her own identity; she needed to find her own place in the family and the society in which she lived. This shifting idea of identity can be seen in many of Frida’s paintings. Frida painted over 55 self-portraits, none of which depicted the same “self.” In fact, within a single painting, Frida often presents many versions of herself, as evidenced in “Self Portrait Drawing.” In this sketch Frida at first appears to be rendering a basic sketch of her mirrored reflection. However, there is more than one Frida image portrayed in this sketch. The artist appears to be viewing herself from afar, drawing what she sees, and then drawing what the secondary Frida can see. Five arms grow from her head, arranging her hair, holding a sketchbook, supporting her face. The effect is to create a disconnection between the artist and her depiction of herself. The Frida we see in the sketch seems to be still deciding which version of herself she wants to portray.
In 1925, Frida experienced the first of what she called “the two accidents from which I never recovered.3 On September 17, 1925 Frida was on a bus that collided with an oncoming streetcar. The impact of the crash and the resulting fire left Frida naked, impaled by an iron guardrail that had entered at her left hip and exited at her vagina. In addition, the gold dust carried by another passenger on the bus had exploded and covered Kahlo’s naked, impaled body. Her spine had been broken in three places, her right foot had been crushed, and her right leg and collarbone were fractured. Kahlo spent three months in the hospital and suffered chronic pain for the remainder of her life, as she was forced to wear a rigid series of corsets to support her spine and suffer through many operations to repair her damaged foot. It was during this recovery period, that Frida was given a set of paints by her father and began to paint.4 Because of these life-altering experiences, Frida developed a critical and perceptive style. She had little tolerance for affectation or pretension.
One year after the accident Frida produced her first painting, a portrait dedicated to her boyfriend at the time, Alejandro Gomez Arias, leader of the Cachuchas.5 In 1925, Frida began an apprenticeship with Fernando Fernandez, a commercial engraver. During this time, Frida was to copy the female nudes and portraits of Swedish artist, Anders Zorn. While she showed talent in this area, Frida’s style tended to a more expressive and original style. She began to experiment with Modernist forms in “Pancho Villa and Adelita,” in 1927. In the early thirties, Frida made a break with her stylistic past in a portrait of horticulturist Luther Burbank. During this time, we began to see the major elements of Frida’s characteristic style, a type of symbolic illusionism.6
As Kahlo reevaluated her artistic stance, she also became more active in politics. A year after she painted her first portrait, she joined the Young Communist League. This political stance seems to have been brought about by two main causes. First, the leaders of the Mexican Communist Party were also the leading artists of the time. Siqueiros, Orozco, Guerrero and Frida’s future husband, Diego Rivera were all members of this party. Under the cover of a public arts program, these artists pushed forward the idea of a socially meaningful art.7 Though Kahlo never demonstrated any real style of social realism in her work, she seemed to feel her own political consciousness and ideas about the society in which she lived could be most effective through inclusion in this movement. Secondly, the Community party was a place where Frida could find several other female artists whose independence and self-direction was more accepted than in traditional Latin American artistic circles. Modotti and Kollontai were both supporters of women’s emancipation and peace in Mexico while maintaining their individual artistic styles.8 Perhaps in joining the Communist party, Frida was not only taking a political stance, but also positioning herself as an artist to be taken seriously, regardless of her gender. She was continuing her defiance of accepted practices and conventions, particularly the role of women in both the artistic and greater world.
In 1929, Kahlo, was involved in the second of what she called “the two accidents from which I never recovered” when she married fellow communist and artist Diego Rivera, who was 21 years her senior. Their marriage portrait depicts Rivera as a dominating figure, towering over Kahlo while grasping a palette and brushes.9 Soon after their marriage, Rivera and Kahlo spent three years in the United States, where Kahlo began to more deeply explore her own artistic sensibilities. While Rivera worked on commissions, Frida spent time visiting museums and meeting female artists, the likes of which included photographer Imogen Cunningham, Georgia O’Keefe and Lucienne Bloch. It was at the San Francisco Women Artists Sixth Annual Exhibition in 1931 that Frida’s work was first seen in public. While Frida’s art was gaining recognition in small circles, Rivera suffered many setbacks, including the destruction of his Rockefeller Center mural, and after three years in the states, the Rivera’s returned to Mexico.10
The return to Mexico along with Rivera’s depression led to a strain in Frida’s marriage. This was not a productive time in Frida’s career, and Frida and Diego began to keep separate residences. During this time, Kahlo demonstrated her lack of convention regarding sexual practices, by engaging in numerous affairs, with both women and men. Kahlo’s sexual relationships with women have been seen as yet another form of resistance; a defiance of accepted sexual and gender roles. Kahlo’s “Two Nudes in the Jungle” is sometimes seen as an affirmation of Kahlo’s relationships with women in that it depicts a seemingly intimate relationship between two nude women, either of which could be seen as Kahlo herself.
Kahlo’s affairs also included Russian leader, Leon Trotsky. While her affair with Trotsky did not last beyond his trial in Mexico, the political upheaval of Mexico at the time seems to have pushed Frida towards a more productive period. In fact, in 1937 alone, Frida completed 15 paintings and was included in a group exhibition in The Galeria de Arte, part of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.11 It was at this exhibition that Andre Breton first saw Kahlo’s work and requested an exhibition in New York and Paris.
Though Frida did not agree with Breton’s “academic and theoretical” ideas concerning art, it is his initial interest in her work that led to Frida’s international establishment as an artist. Throughout the 1940s, Kahlo received numerous awards and honors as well as commissions. The Mexican government began to see Frida as a resource and asked her to become a founding member of the Seminario de Cultural Mexicana. In this position, she was responsible for spreading Mexican culture by lectures, exhibitions and articles. In addition, Frida was awarded the National Prize of Arts and Sciences. Outside of Mexico, Kahlo’s art was being shown in London, Paris, New York and Stockholm.12
As her international success grew, Kahlo’s marriage ended with a divorce from Rivera in 1939. However, in 1940 Rivera and Kahlo remarried. Though their second marriage seemed to be propelled by the political needs of their country, the love affair between Rivera and Kahlo has become something of a legend. Their arguments, separations, love and hate have crept into the understanding of Frida as an artist and a woman. It can be argued that what bound Kahlo and Rivera, more than their love, was their art; their most deep connections, their deepest communication seems to have occurred on an artistic level. While Frida never adopted Diego’s artistic style nor did Rivera ever master Frida’s ability to express emotion in painting, they complemented one another and seemed to have grown as artists by having known each other. In fact, Frida wrote of Digeo, “..at every moment he’s my child, my child born every little while, every day, from my own self.”13
In 1946, Frida traveled back to the United States to have surgery to fuse five of her vertebrae. After this surgery, Frida began to rely heavily on morphine and alcohol to lessen the extreme pain. In addition, she was often unable to leave her bed.14 A well-known painting from this time period is The Little Deer, in which Frida’s head is on the body of a deer that has been pierced by numerous arrows. The message seems to be that of severe emotional hurt and physical pain. A year later, in 1947, Frida painted Self-Portrait With Loose Hair. On first look, this painting may seem similar to any of Frida’s earlier portraits, however upon closer inspection, the Frida in this painting seems much older; her eyes are tired and her face is wrinkled and worn. As Frida grew older, her art seemed to focus more and more on her physical suffering. She dwelt on the pain she felt, charting the assaults on her body throughout her life. Even as her physical ability to paint lessened, Frida continued to keep a diary in which she drew more subtle self-portraits than were ever seen before. These portraits show a Kahlo that has lost much of her physical dexterity and motor control, but continues to focus on revealing her fears, passions and failings.15
In the last years of her life, Frida was forced to have her right leg amputated due to gangrene. She now rarely left her house and was even more dependent on painkillers. On July 2, 1954 Frida attended a protest against American involvement in Guatemala, her wheelchair pushed by Diego Rivera. On July 13, Frida died at home of a pulmonary embolism.16 However, Frida’s dramatics did not end on the day of her death. During her cremation, a blast of heat was released, forcing Frida’s body into a sitting position and lighting her hair ablaze.17 For the mourners present at this moment, it must have seemed like a final rage against convention, even in death.
Kahlo’s portraits contain meaning on many levels. While Kahlo often painted herself, these paintings were never truly only about Frida. Instead, these portraits often include references to the political situation in her homeland, the severe physical suffering Frida endured throughout her life, as well as a commentary on the social and sexual roles assigned to women and working people during this time. She mixed symbols from both her personal and political life to show relationships and convey her point of view. A notable example of this can be seen in Kahlo’s The Two Fridas.
The Two Fridas, completed in 1939, is a 68” by 68” oil on canvas painting that depicts two different images of Frida Kahlo sitting side by side. This painting can be seen as a political illustration of varying self-images. Against a cloudy sky, Frida positions two versions of herself that cannot possibly be in the same space. She seated the two Frida’s on a rustic bench in a non-descript space. This painting could be of any woman, from any country. In this way, Kahlo is making the transition from mere viewing to interaction easier for those viewing the painting.
The figures share a circulatory system, connected by two separate hearts. Rivera referred to this style as “occult materialism.” This implies a mystic and physical connection between the two Frida’s. There is a symbolic physical connection between these women. In addition, one of the images is holding a small emblem of Rivera, associated with the monjas coronadas.18 In this way, Frida is perhaps representing one of her selves as a devotee and lover of Rivera; someone who views Rivera as something apart from the earthly world. This idea of Rivera as something ‘other’ and of a higher plane can be seen throughout Frida’s art as well as in her writing on the subject. In addition, it is important to note that only one Frida is holding the picture of Rivera. In fact, during an interview done at the time the painting was shown, Frida commented that, “one was the self that Diego once loved, and the other the one he no longer loved.”19 By only one woman holding the emblem, Frida is commenting not only on her deep love for Diego, but also his inability to love all sides of her.
Kahlo separates the two Frida’s by generation. The women are dressed in differing clothing based on differing generations. The Frida on the left is dressed as a Victorian woman, while on the right she wears a traditional Mexican Tehuana skirt and blouse. In this way, Frida is separating her two selves into a woman defined via Victorian customs and the traditional Mexican woman. She is perhaps commenting on the inability of these two women to exist within the same person, without suffering some sort of disconnection of self. The women’s costumes shift their meanings in the cultural realm. Kahlo is expressing images of herself in this painting, but also creating alternate versions of herself. In this painting, she is both the European and the Mexican traditional woman. In both the Victorian and Mexican dress, Frida is expressing her lack of control in relation to patriarchal powers and is creating her own image by melding these two. These women exist together but separately, much like Frida herself.
The Two Fridas is an example of the arts’ ability to help us see beneath the surface. Kahlo’s visual narrative conveys the emotional pain and isolation of two conflicting identities: one representing her Mexican heritage and the other her European heritage. The Two Fridas vividly expresses the physical and emotional suffering of a crippling disability and also touches on Kahlo’s failed marriage to Diego Rivera. The ideas presented in this painting, are like most of Frida’s work, commenting on both her personal truths and what she sees as the greater truth of the world. Although this work is essentially autobiographical, The Two Fridas allows a glimpse into the nature of our own conflicted and fragmented selves.
Kahlo further explores the idea of self in Self Portrait with Cropped Hair. In this painting, the Frida image is seated in a chair surrounded by the remnant of her sheared hair. She has a short, masculine haircut and is wearing a man’s suit. In Self Portrait with Cropped Hair, Frida is more directly commenting on the idea of women in society. There are no social icons of the feminine in this portrait. In fact, it is the coils of her sheared hair that seem to symbolize a new found freedom for Kahlo. It is the riding oneself of a feminine ideal (long hair) that ultimately leads Kahlo to be grounded and strong. The idea is further solidified by the lyrics of a popular song painted above the image of Frida: “Look, if I loved you it was for your hair. Now that you’re bald, I no longer care.”20
Kahlo is defying what at the time was both socially and legally punishable. She is holding scissors, instead of the typical female fan held in many portraits. Also, she has a masculine haircut and is wearing an oversized man’s suit. In this way, Frida is openly defying the social conventions of the time; she is refusing to acquiesce to the idea of what a woman must look and/or act like. She is questioning the prevailing idea of women at the time. In seeing this painting, the viewer is forced to rearrange his expectations of the female. Perhaps most importantly, Frida is staring directly at the viewer. In this way, Frida is almost daring the viewer to look deeper, to rearrange the ideas he or she came to the painting with.
Citations:
1Grimberg 2008, 92 2Tibol 1983, 11 3Hardin 1997, 35 4Hardin 1997, 37 5Lowe 1991, 25 |6Lowe 1991, 30 7Lowe 1991, 20 8Lowe 1991, 22 9Cork 2005, 44 10Hardin 1997, 43 11Lowe 1991, 24 12Lowe 1991, 25 13Tibol 1983, 27 14Hardin 1997, 105 15Lowe 1991, 30 16Hardin 1997, 108 17Hardin 1997, 108 18Lowe 1991, 59 19Lowe 1991, 59 20Lowe 1991, 61
Bibliography:
Grimberg, Saloman. Frida Kahlo: Song of Herself. New York: Merrell, 2008
Lowe, Sarah M. Frida Kahlo. New York: Universe Publishing, 1991.
Hardin, Terri. Frida Kahlo: A Modern Master. New York: Todtri, 1997.
Tibol, Raquel. Frida Kahlo: An Open Life. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1983.
Cork, Richard. 2005. See My Pain. New Statesman (London, England: 1996) v. 134. 44)
