Frida Kahlo - Audio Biography

June 5, 2024

Frida Kahlo Biography

Frida Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907 in Coyoacán, Mexico City, Mexico. Her father, Guillermo Kahlo, was a German photographer who had immigrated to Mexico, and her mother, Matilde Calderón y Gonzáles, was of Spanish and Indigenous Mexican descent. Due to a childhood bout of polio that left her right leg thinner than her left, Kahlo walked with a limp for the rest of her life.<br /><br /><br />As a teenager, Kahlo was intellectually gifted and attended the prestigious National Preparatory School in Mexico City, with ambitions of becoming a doctor. However, on September 17, 1925, Kahlo was riding a bus when it collided with a streetcar. She suffered severe injuries as a steel handrail impaled her through the hip, fracturing her spine and pelvis in three places, dislocating her shoulder, and breaking several ribs and her right leg in eleven places. The extensive spinal damage meant she would be plagued by health issues for the rest of her life, ruling out a medical career.<br /><br /><br />It was during Kahlo's three-month recovery in a full body cast that she decided to take up painting to occupy her time. Initially self-taught, she began to explore European techniques taught by her father, who had his own art studio and was a professional photographer. She also sought out leading Mexican artists like Diego Rivera as her mentors. Rivera praised Kahlo's talent, and over time, their mentor-mentee relationship blossomed into a passionate romance. They married in August 1929, despite the disapproval of their 20-year age gap and Rivera's womanizing tendencies, already having two ex-wives.<br /><br /><br />As an artist, Kahlo was drawn to Mexican folk art and culture, embracing vibrant colors and pre-Columbian motifs. She also directly confronted sensitive themes in her extremely personal, symbolic self-portraits relating to hardship, sex, politics, and female identity. By the mid-1930s, her health was deteriorating, and she underwent over 30 operations in her lifetime, including painful spinal surgeries. Her suffering fueled her art even further, as she started combining realism with surrealism to express her psychological anguish.<br /><br /><br />By the late 1930s, Kahlo's marriage to Rivera was strained due both to his infidelity and their inability to have a child. They divorced in 1939 but reconciled and remarried the following year. Their relationship would remain tumultuous, however, with multiple separations and affairs on both sides. Yet despite their personal difficulties, Rivera continued to provide vital support for Kahlo's artistic career. Through his high-profile mural commissions and political contacts, he arranged exhibitions for her in Mexico and the United States to gain international recognition.<br /><br /><br />In 1938, Kahlo had her first significant exhibition in New York. Four of her paintings sold out at a gallery in Manhattan, prompting media attention. Over the next few years, she also exhibited her work in Paris and Mexico City. By the mid-1940s, she had achieved fame as an artist in her own right, able to step outside of Rivera's shadow. She developed friendships with notable European artists like Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp, who praised her unique artistic style.<br /><br /><br />By 1950, after decades of medical complications, Kahlo was told by doctors that her right leg would need to be amputated below the knee due to gangrene. She was admitted to the Hospital Inmaculada in Mexico City but was so distressed at the prospect of losing her leg that she discharged herself. Her health was now extremely frail, as the gangrene continued to worsen further. Despite requiring regular blood transfusions and being mostly confined to her home in Coyoacán, she continued to paint up until her death.<br /><br /><br />On the evening of July 12, 1954, her nurse found Kahlo in a coma. She had just taken part in a Communist demonstration against U.S. intervention in Guatemala. Kahlo died the next morning at her beloved cobalt blue home. Though the official cause of death was reported as pulmonary embolism, there has been speculation that she took her own life, with an overdose being the most likely method. She was just 47 years old at the time of her death.<br /><br /><br />Frida Kahlo's legacy and cult following continued to grow posthumously due in part to the 1970s feminist movement and expanded scholarship on her life and works of art. She is often heralded as an icon of courage, pain, female empowerment, LGBT pride, and Mexican cultural identity. Over 25,000 visitors per week flock to her home in Coyoacán, now the Frida Kahlo Museum, one of Mexico City's top attractions.<br /><br /><br />Kahlo's works had mostly been housed in the collection of her widower husband Diego Rivera upon her death. When Rivera passed away in 1957, their collection was bequeathed to the people of Mexico. Much of that collection is now showcased at The Blue House museum. The increasing value and prestige of her art has also led to some of her most important paintings being acquired by major museums across the globe in the past few decades.<br /><br /><br />In 2001, one of her self portraits sold for US$5.6 million at Sotheby's, at the time setting the record for a Latin American work of art. In 2016, another work was auctioned at Christie's for $8 million. To date, her paintings hold three of the top 10 records for most valuable Latin American art sold at auction worldwide. Forever etched in the public imagination, Frida Kahlo's bold and colorful imprint on the world of fine art is now celebrated around the globe.<br /><br />