Frida kahlo

Morgan Wallace Professor Schaefer 26 October 2014 Frida Kahlo is best known as a “Mexican self portrait artist” (“Frida Kahlo” 1 ) who painted deeply personal paintings. Her biography explained how she loved traditional and colorful clothing and jewelry (“Frida Kahlo”1). Most of her work contains images of colorful Mexican flowers surrounding her bold face in which she rarely smiled. Frida had a thick uni-brow and she always painted in all her self-portraits. Her other work consists of nature, fruit, or bizarre and sometimes disturbing images. Her work is usually colorful but somewhat depressing, and has deeper meanings beyond the initial image the viewer sees. Each painting tells an important story in her life, many of which were troubled times. Such images take time to examine and understand.

Frida was born in July of 1907 in Coyocoan, Mexico City. When she was six years old she developed Polio, and at age eighteen she was in a bus crash which fractured her spine and pelvis. Both of these events caused her a lifetime of pain. Once married she had a love hate relationship with her Husband Diego Rivera (also an artist). They broke their marriage off several times and each had lovers on the side. During these

Wallace 2 years Frida had experienced multiple miscarriages, and she painted the grueling experiences she went through. She also painted images of suicide, exposed hearts, blood, nails in her naked body, skeletons, body braces and other physical challenges she had faced. To add to the list of her struggles, Frida had gangrene in her foot, which later had to be amputated. She also had cases of pneumonia, and was often depressed.

In the book The Humanistic Tradition the author Gloria writes, “ Her paintings bring to life the experience of chronic pain, both physical (her accident required some thirty surgeries and ultimately involved the amputation of her right leg) and psychic (repeated miscarriages, for example, left her incapable of bearing a child) (Fiero 46).

Unlike many artists, she painted her reality, not her dreams. Although some of her images seem daunting, she is one of the most celebrated surrealists of her time. Her paintings were displayed in the Louvre in Paris while she was still alive. She was very sick at the time, but was able to attend her artwork showings from a hospital bed she was wheeled in on. Frida died at age 47 in July of 1954, the cause was unknown. Her work is greatly recognizable today, and she was a huge part of the surrealist movement, even though she did not like this label on her work.

The reason I chose Frida Kahlo for my project is for her bold images that stick in ones mind. I learned about her once in an Art History course and wanted to know more. I like that she is not afraid to use color, even in a depressing image. It makes her work more peculiar and intriguing. Additionally, I like the elements of depth and story telling in her work. Her strength is highlighted in the hardships she shared in her paintings. I personally am not a fan of her work, as I would not hang it on my wall, but I appreciate her detail and emotions, as well as her range from colorful flowers to

Wallace 3 haunting images. They provided me with a good source of inspiration for this particular project.

Works Cited

Wallace 4 "Frida Kahlo." Biography . Ed. Laura Grimm, Leanne French, and Eudie Pak. N.p., n.d.

Web. 26 Oct. 2014. <http://www.biography.com/people/frida-kahlo-9359496>.

Fiero, Gloria K. The Humanistic Tradition. 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006. 1180. Print.