 
Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) 1910 was the year of the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution. Frida wanted her life to begin with the modern Mexico. |
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Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) 1910 was the year of the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution. Frida wanted her life to begin with the modern Mexico. |
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Frida Kahlo (1907-1954)
My Grandparents, My Parents, and I (Family Tree), 1936 Oil and tempera on metal panel, 12 1/8 x 13 5/8" (30.7 x 34.5 cm) The Museum of Modern Art, New York |
 and Henriette Kahlo (née Kaufmann) were originally from the city of Arad, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and is currently in Romania. They moved to Germany and settled near Baden-Baden in the late 1860s. |
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Wedding photograph of Guillermo Kahlo and Matilde Calderón, 1898 |
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Nazi Diagram Explaining who was Jewish |
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In his painting, Rousseau depicts himself and his wife,
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Coyoacan, La Casa Azul (The Blue House) |
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Francis H. Ramsbotham, The Principles and Practice of Obstetric Medicine and Surgery in Reference to the Process of Parturition (Philadelphia: Blanchard and Lea, 1857) |
Frida Kahlo, Portrait of Guillermo Kahlo, 1952 |
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 Frida, Carmelo Navarro and Cristina Kahlo Photo credit: Kahlo, Guillermo |
Frida and Cristina |
Portrait of Cristina Kahlo 1928 was auctioned at Sotheby's for $1,655,750 |
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 Self-Portrait, 1941 |
Frida by Kahlo: A story in Self-Portraits
On the afternoon of September 17, 1925, Frida and her
friend Alex was involved in a severe Bus vs. Streetcar crash, and Frida
was damaged very severely. A metal rod had made a very deep abdominal
wound, and her third and fourth lumbar vertebrae were fractured.
Frida had received many more wounds too, and she ended up trapped in a
body cast for months, as her illustration shows:
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While Frida was confined to her bed, her mother brought her a small lap easel, and Frida started to paint. She had studied art before, at the National Preparatory School, where she had met Diego Rivera when he was painting the Creation mural, but Frida had never worked on paintings before. Over her bed, Frida had a mirror so she could see herself, and this was the beginning of her focus on self portraits. |
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Frida Married Diego in 1929Frida was a close friend of Tina Modotti, who modelled for Diego Rivera, and through her Frida and Diego met again, and fell in love. They married August 21st, 1929. |
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In the fall of 1930 Frida traveled with Diego to San Francisco, where Diego worked on murals at the Pacific Stock Exchange and the California School of Fine Arts, and in the summer of 1931 they went to New York where Diego had a major exhibition of his work. Then, in the spring of 1932, they moved to Detroit, where Diego worked on a series of murals at the Detroit Institute of Arts. At this time Frida had become pregnant, however, after the bus accident in 1925 she could not have children, and complications arose. Frida's trauma in the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit is illustrated in her painting. |
A Few Small Nips 1935
 (Between the Curtains), 1937 |
Diego was a supporter of Leon Trotsky, who Stalin had
ousted from the Soviet Union, a few years after the death of Lenin, and
Diego helped Trotsky move to Mexico early in 1937. There Leon and
his wife Natalia got to stay in Frida's house in Coyoacan, the Casa Azul.
Frida was very fond of Trotsky, and they had a very brief affair.
For Leon's birthday November 7th, Frida painted the Between the Curtains
portrait for him:
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The Two Fridas, 1939 |
Self portrait in 1940 |
In 1939 Diego and Frida divorced, and Frida felt very
sad and distraught by this. She produced many fine paintings
in this period, but being devastated by the divorce, she consumed a lot
of liquor, and her health deteriorated rapidly. She had circulatory
and other problems associated with the incidents she had had before.
Frida's health was poor, and she moved back with Diego, who was painting a mural in San Francisco. There Frida got proper medical treatment and rest, and she recovered rapidly. December 8, 1940, Diego and Frida married again. |
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The Dream 1940 Oil on Canvas. |
The Judas figures are usually seen in the streets of
Mexico on Easter Saturday, since it is believed that the traitor will only
find release in suicide. The skeleton wires and explosives represent that
at any moment they will explode, making her dream of death a reality. Her
preoccupation of death can be seen in her paintings and in her house because
she had skeletons and dead children hanging on the walls.
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The Broken Column, 1944 |
Frida Kahlo, Without Hope, 1945. Oil on Canvas mounted on Masonite, 11" x 14 1/4". Dolores Olmedo Foundation, Mexico. |
Alfonso Toro, La Familia Carvajal (Mexico City: Editorial Patria, 1944) Mendel Gottesman Library of Hebraica/Judaica, Yeshiva University Kahlo owned two copies of Alfonso Toro's La Familia Carvajal. She kept one two-volume set on a shelf near her bed, and another in her studio library. Toro's books offer a detailed study of the history of the persecution of "hidden" Jews by the Mexican Inquisition. They include vivid descriptions and illustrations of interrogation and torture. Various reproductions in La Familia Carvajal are related to the central image depicted in Without Hope. In one of Kahlo's diary entries from 1944, among common, everyday words and phrases, the word potro – virtually obsolete in twentieth-century Mexico – appears. |
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Little Deer, 1946 |
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The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), |
Self Portrait with Dr. Juan Farill (1951) |
Frida in bed at final opening, with Concha Michel, Antonio Pelaez, Dr. Roberto Garza, Carmen Farell, Dr. Atl 1953 |
What happened to Diego Rivera after Frida Kahlo's death in 1954?
It is said that Frida's husband, Diego Rivera, ate some
of Frida's ashes after her cremation. A year later in 1955, Diego married
Emma Hurtado, his art dealer since 1946. Diego set up a trust fund to provide
for the administration of Anahuacalli and Frida Kahlo's Coyoacán
homes as museums. At age 70, Diego Rivera died of heart failure in his
San Angel studio. He is buried in the Rotonda de los Hombres Ilustres at
the pantheon of Dolores, Mexico City.