Frida Kahlo, paintings by Mexican artist. Frida Kahlo: biography and best works

For more than half a century, the fate of the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo has not only fascinated art historians and admirers of her talent, but has also been considered the standard of stamina and courage in the struggle of life.

33 misfortunes

All her life, Frida wove the thin lace of the legend with her own hands, and then picturesquely draped herself into this “shawl” with a complex, confused pattern - effectively, as Spanish women can (however, a lot of blood was mixed in her mother’s blood, in particular, Indian). Those who read the artist's famous diary are wrong to think that they know something undoubtedly genuine about this amazing woman. She loved to lead the "hunters" into impassable thickets, knocking them off the trail. The legend continues to this day, growing in detail right in the Blue House in Coyocan, a suburb of Mexico City, where she spent her childhood and where she lived with her husband, Diego Riveira, in a destructive marriage for who knows how many years. Judging by the inscription on the wall of the patio, almost thirty, but in fact the couple lived both abroad and in various workshops at home. They were divorced for a year, and then they went down the aisle again. Today there is a museum in the Blue House, and God himself ordered the employees to invent spectacular fables and juggle dates.

One thing is obvious: she was born on July 6, 1907 (however, this is not one hundred percent), and she died on July 13, 1954 (this is already reliable). And it is also quite obvious that from early childhood, fate either began - in spite of everything - to prepare Frida Kahlo for a great destiny, or tried with all her might to prevent the artist from taking her place in the complex hierarchy of world art.

At the age of six, a girl from a well-to-do family fell ill with polio (as you know, the disease mowed down first of all malnourished children in the slums) and became the object of ridicule because of her lameness and noticeably thinner right leg. The ill-fated limb annoyed God so much that after forty years he easily allowed it to be amputated. The resilient Frida then commented: “Why would a person who flies have legs?” In the meantime, she swam, tried to play football with the boys, tried to master the techniques of boxing, as if anticipating that she would have to fight all her life: with herself, misunderstanding of others, evil fate. The other would have leaned back with a sigh on the lace pillows, letting events take their course, and the fifteen-year-old Frida, pulling on a pair of stockings to make her leg thicker, went to the Prepatory - the National Preparatory School. She began to study medicine (due to the constant demand, special books never gathered dust on her shelves in the company of an alcoholized embryo): she was smart, she understood that knowledge of this kind would be useful to her. Honestly, I had no idea how soon.

Eyewitnesses-classmates claimed that Frida never had a complex (think lameness!) - but what about huge eyes and beautiful hair? She even began to flirt with the incoming artist Diego Riveira, who decorated the Prepatory with the "Creation" painting. In 1929 he would become her husband. But before that, you still had to live. Frida was eighteen, she felt quite well, but, as Bulgakov's admirers would say, Annushka had already left the house and managed to spill the oil. A car accident, when the girl was literally pierced by a tram arc, drastically changed her plans, but gave her a calling. Numerous fractures of the spine, pelvis, ribs became a sufficient reason to swaddle and corset the rebel (by the way, painting medical corsets with political symbols and butterflies later became her know-how). My father ordered a special stretcher so that he could work lying down. And what else to do with a girl doomed to immobility? Frida felt like an artist.

Married - do not attack ...

She scrambled out, got to her feet, but the pain never let her go far from her. But Frida didn’t give up: she couldn’t dance at parties, but she sang folk songs loudly, she didn’t have the opportunity to flaunt in short dresses, but she became addicted to long bright skirts (and then she figured out a spectacular hairstyle with ribbons and flowers), she didn’t become a doctor, but she became fond of to canvases and stretchers. Of course, at first no one was particularly interested in her work, they say, ordinary primitivism, the conscientious efforts of a graduate of an art school. It was later that Frida Kahlo would be classified as a surrealist, one of her paintings - "Roots" - (although there was no canvas there, only a metal board and oil) at Sotheby's in 2005 will be valued at $ 7 million, and a small London's Tate gallery will suddenly become famous thanks to a solo exhibition of Kahlo. She really grew roots in her native soil, and her growing patriotism from year to year gave the paintings originality, seducing the viewer with many symbols and Aztec fetishes.

Among Frida's works there are many self-portraits. It wasn't that she was narcissistic, she just wrote herself, she said, "because that's the subject I know best." A beautiful, serious girl with a barely noticeable fluff over her plump lip is looking at us. Exactly the same mustache "built" for herself, having really shaved, actress Salma Hayek in the Oscar-winning film "Frida" (2002). She shocked the external resemblance of the artist's relatives, and millions of viewers through hard-won authenticity.

And yet, the main theme of Kahlo's work was embodied pain. It was she who stuck spikes in the neck in the “Portrait with a Crown of Thorns”, splashed in a dull bath on the canvas “What Water Gave Me”, acted as bloody spots in the painting “Just a Few Scratches”. The latter was “inspired” by Diego Rivera, who cheated on his wife with his sister-in-law and brushed aside reproaches: “Just think, it’s just a scratch.” It is not known which suffering is stronger - physical or mental. “There were two accidents in my life,” Frida said. - The first is a tram, the second is Diego. The second one is scarier.

Maximilian Voloshin, who met with Rivera in Paris, called the artist a "good cannibal." And not only because the crazy Mexican liked to stun the dignified guests with stories about his own cannibalism. He joked so much. At home, he was simply called Puzan and a womanizer. But Rivera still had something from the cannibal. For example, at his own wedding, having taken a sip of tequila, he scared the newlywed to tears, snatching out of nowhere a weapon that had come from and starting indiscriminate firing. If someone thinks that this is customary at Mexican weddings, he is greatly mistaken. It was exclusive.

Dark business

Rivera generally turned out to be an inventor and somewhere even a dreamer. He joined the Communist Party and dragged his wife into politics. However, with her innate sense of justice, she did not resist too much, and then she was completely carried away by a noble cause: for example, she and her husband, using fame and respect, successfully raised funds for the Republicans who fought against Franco in Spain. Things got worse when Rivera, along with his friend Siqueiros, began to flirt. It all started with his trip to the Soviet Union. In Moscow, the famous artist met the famous myth-maker, leader of the IV International Trotsky. And soon, fleeing Stalin's wrath, Lev Davidovich, together with his wife, Natalya Sedykh, ended up in Mexico. In the port of Tampico, the disgraced couple was met by Frida Kahlo - Diego at that time was in the hospital. It was assumed that the elderly political emigrants would live indefinitely in the Blue House. The visit ended unexpectedly soon. They say that a connoisseur of beauty and world harmony began, without hiding, to look after the mistress. The laughing Frida encouraged these signs of attention (“there is nothing more precious than laughter, with its help you can break away from yourself, become weightless”) or amused in your own way, we will never know (the self-portrait written as a gift to the unbending Bolshevik turned out to be unclaimed). But history has left us a true, albeit still dark, story with the Mercader ice ax. In any case, the Rivera-Cahlo family was involved in the assassination of Trotsky. If only because Rivera was friends with Siqueiros, a participant in the first, unsuccessful, assassination attempt, and Frida was seen in a cafe with Ramon Mercader on the evening before the massacre. The couple had to explain themselves to the police.

In a foreign land

But before these sad events, Frida managed to escape from the tired routine and see Paris. It happened when Lev Davidovich was still alive, alive, and a prominent surrealist poet, clinging to the Communist Party, Andre Breton, came to visit him. It was he who invited Frida to get acquainted with beautiful France, to show the people at least a few paintings.

Paris of 1938 did not impress our exotic hummingbird too much. She lacked the sun, the bright colors of her homeland, they could not be replaced even by the variegated exhibits of the Mexican art exhibition, of which she became a landmark and decoration. She herself, all in frills and necklaces, was treated as some kind of exquisite Aztec artifact. Avid for everything new, Elsa Schiaparelli hastily even figured out the dress "Mr. Rivera" and the perfume that characterizes the mood of those weeks - Shoching.

Frida was dragged to numerous "occasional dinners", the toastrs seasoned the eulogy with the magic word "surrealism". Frida, like Salvador Dali in her time, swept aside frames: “My paintings are revelation itself. I hate surrealism!" Nothing helped: French artists loved labels. Many of them, regardless of the tablets, were delighted with the originality of the canvases and the “m-m Rivera” herself. Picasso was smitten on the spot. At a dinner he arranged with his own hands, he even presented the “overseas orchid” with strange earrings in the shape of a hand with spread fingers. And yet, the real result of the trip was something else - the painting “Frame” was bought by the Louvre.

Frida was no worse met in America, where she and her husband lived for several years after the story with Trotsky. Rivera worked on murals in New York and San Francisco, and Frida was treated in a clinic for alcoholism and nervous exhaustion. In total, she underwent more than thirty operations on the spine, and her relatives did not have the courage to reproach her for her passion for painkillers and soft drugs. Every day brought new pain and disappointment. This "Little Chamois" was pierced with darts cleaner than St. Sebastian's. Blood oozed out.

In native embrace

In terms of mentality, Frida Kahlo was not a cosmopolitan. Hometown meant a lot to her. Ironically, the only personal exhibition of the artist was held here only a year before her death. Frida was once again in the hospital when her friends decided to surprise her. Inflammation of the lungs, suffered the day before, amputation of the leg, in which the infection began, did not prevent her from enjoying the long-awaited triumph. She ordered to put a bed in the middle of the exhibition hall and, reclining like a queen, accepted congratulations, periodically singing her favorite songs in a loud voice. It was an unconditional triumph of the spirit over the weak flesh.

Frida died of a pulmonary embolism, after untreated pneumonia. By the way, during her illness, the obstinate patient did not wrap herself in blankets, as the doctors prescribed, but participated in a four-hour protest against the entry of American troops into Guatemala. That was all she was.

In the last days and nights, the husband was on duty at the bedside inseparably, as if confirming the strength of his love and devotion. But, as they say, all is well on time. Marriage brought Frida endless pain, three unsuccessful pregnancies and disappointment, which she tried to drown out in her work. They say that in the crematorium, at the very doors of the furnace, caught by a hot wave, she suddenly rose, as if reaching for the fire. Flame to flame...

The Mexican artist is widely known in her homeland. Some even manage to profit from it. Ten years ago, Venezuelan entrepreneur Carlos Dorado created the Frida Kalho Corporation fund, which received the right to use the sonorous name. Frida Kahlo today is not only paintings, but also cosmetics, underwear, corsets, shoes, jewelry, ceramics, beer and even her favorite brand of tequila. The portrait of the Kalo Rivera couple flaunts on banknotes of 500 pesos. But with such fair fame, the paintings of Frida Kahlo do not become less mysterious, you can decipher them endlessly. This wonderful and misunderstood woman is very suited to Blok’s lines: “What sobbed in her, what fought, what did she expect from us?” ...

Text: Darina Lunina

Attempts to tell about this extraordinary woman have been made more than once - voluminous novels, multi-page studies have been written about her, opera and drama performances have been staged, feature and documentary films have been shot. But no one managed to unravel and most importantly - to reflect the secret of her magical appeal and amazingly sensual femininity. This post is also one of those attempts, illustrated with rather rare photos of the great Frida!

frida kahlo

Frida Kahlo was born in Mexico City in 1907. She is the third daughter of Gulermo and Mathilde Kahlo. Father - a photographer, by origin - a Jew, originally from Germany. Mother is Spanish, born in America. Frida Kahlo fell ill with polio at the age of 6, after which she was left with a limp. "Frida is a wooden leg," her peers cruelly teased. And she, in defiance of everyone, swam, played football with the boys and even went in for boxing.

Two-year-old Frida, 1909. Photo taken by her father!

Little Frida 1911

Yellowed photographs are like milestones of fate. The unknown photographer who “clicked” Diego and Frida on May 1, 1924 hardly thought that his photograph would become the first line of their common biography. He captured Diego Rivera, already famous for his powerful "folk" frescoes and freedom-loving views, at the head of the column of the union of revolutionary artists, sculptures and graphic artists in front of the National Palace in Mexico City.

Next to the huge Rivera, little Frida with a determined face and courageously upturned fists looks like a fragile girl.

Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo at the 1929 May Day demonstration (photo by Tina Modotti)

On that May day, Diego and Frida, united by common ideals, stepped together into a future life - never to part. Despite the enormous trials that fate threw up to them every now and then.

In 1925, an eighteen-year-old girl was overtaken by a new blow of fate. On September 17, at a crossroads near the San Juan market, Frida's bus was hit by a tram. One of the iron fragments of the wagon pierced Frida through and through at the level of the pelvis and exited through the vagina. “So I lost my virginity,” she said. After the accident, she was told that she was found completely naked - all her clothes were torn off her. Someone on the bus was carrying a bag of dry gold paint. It tore, and the golden powder covered Frida's bloody body. And a piece of iron stuck out of this golden body.

Her spine was broken in three places, her collarbones, ribs, and pelvic bones were broken. The right leg was broken in eleven places, the foot was shattered. For a whole month, Frida lay on her back, clad in plaster from head to toe. “A miracle saved me,” she told Diego. “Because at night in the hospital death danced around my bed.”

For another two years, she was pulled into a special orthopedic corset. The first entry she managed to make in her diary was: Good: I'm starting to get used to suffering.". In order not to go crazy with pain and longing, the girl decided to draw. Her parents made a special stretcher for her so that she could draw lying down, and attached a mirror to it - so that she had someone to draw. Frida could not move. Drawing so fascinated her that one day she confessed to her mother: “I have something to live for. For painting."

Frida Kahlo in a men's suit. We are used to seeing Frida in Mexican blouses and colorful skirts, but she also liked to wear menswear. Bisexuality from her youth prompted Frida to dress up in men's suits.

Frida in male costume (center) with sisters Adriana and Cristina and cousins ​​Carmen and Carlos Veras, 1926.

Frida Kahlo and Chavela Vargas, with whom Frida had a relationship and not quite spiritual, 1945

At 22, Frida Kahlo enters the most prestigious institute in Mexico (national preparatory school). Only 35 girls were taken for 1000 students. There Frida Kahlo meets her future husband Diego Rivera, who has just returned home from France.

Every day Diego became more and more attached to this small, fragile girl - so talented, so strong. On August 21, 1929 they got married. She was twenty-two, he was forty-two.

A wedding photograph taken on August 12, 1929, at the studio of Reyes de Coyaocán. She is sitting, he is standing (probably, in every family album there are similar pictures, only this one shows a woman who survived a terrible car accident. But you can’t guess about it). She is in her favorite national Indian dress with a shawl. He is in a jacket and tie.

On the day of the wedding, Diego showed his explosive temper. The 42-year-old newlywed went over a little tequila and began firing a pistol into the air. Exhortations only inflamed the roaming artist. There was the first family scandal. 22-year-old wife went to her parents. After oversleeping, Diego asked for forgiveness and was forgiven. The newlyweds moved into their first apartment, and then into the now-famous "blue house" on Londres Street in Coyaocan, Mexico City's most "bohemian" area, where they lived for many years.

Frida's relationship with Trotsky is fanned with a romantic halo. The Mexican artist admired the “tribune of the Russian revolution”, was very upset by his expulsion from the USSR and was happy that thanks to Diego Rivera he found shelter in Mexico City.

In January 1937, Leon Trotsky and his wife Natalya Sedova went ashore in the Mexican port of Tampico. Frida met them - Diego was then in the hospital.

The artist brought the exiles to her "blue house", where they finally found peace and quiet. Bright, interesting, charming Frida (after several minutes of communication, no one noticed her painful injuries) instantly captivated the guests.
Almost 60-year-old revolutionary was carried away like a boy. He tried his best to express his tenderness. Now as if by chance he touched her hand, then secretly touched her knee under the table. He scribbled passionate notes and, putting them in a book, passed them right in front of his wife and Rivera. Natalya Sedova guessed about the love adventure, but Diego, they say, never found out about it. “I’m very tired of the old man,” Frida allegedly once dropped in a circle of close friends and broke off a short romance.

There is another version of this story. The young Trotskyite allegedly could not resist the pressure of the tribune of the revolution. Their secret meeting took place in the country estate of San Miguel Regla, 130 kilometers from Mexico City. However, Sedova vigilantly watched her husband: the affair was strangled in the bud. Begging forgiveness from his wife, Trotsky called himself "her old faithful dog." After that, the exiles left the "blue house".

But these are rumors. There is no evidence of this romantic connection.

A little more is known about the love affair between Frida and the Catalan artist José Bartley:

“I don't know how to write love letters. But I want to say that my whole being is open to you. Since I fell in love with you, everything has been mixed up and filled with beauty ... love is like a fragrance, like a current, like rain., - Frida Kahlo wrote in 1946 in her address to Bartoli, who moved to New York, fleeing the horrors of the Spanish Civil War.

Frida Kahlo and Bartoli met when she was recovering from another spinal surgery. Returning to Mexico, she left Bartoli, but their secret romance continued at a distance. The correspondence lasted for several years, reflecting on the artist's painting, her health and her relationship with her husband.

Twenty-five love letters written between August 1946 and November 1949 will become the main lots of the Doyle New York auction house. Bartoli kept more than 100 pages of correspondence until his death in 1995, then the correspondence passed into the hands of his family. Bid organizers expect revenue of up to $120,000.

Despite the fact that they lived in different cities and saw each other extremely rarely, the relationship between the artists continued for three years. They exchanged sincere declarations of love, hidden in sensual and poetic works. Frida painted her double self-portrait Tree of Hope after one of her meetings with Bartoli.

"Bartoli - - last night I felt as if many wings were caressing me all over, as if the tips of my fingers had become lips that kissed my skin", Kahlo wrote on August 29, 1946. “The atoms of my body are yours and they vibrate together, we love each other so much. I want to live and be strong, to love you with all the tenderness that you deserve, to give you everything that is good in me, so that you do not feel alone.

Hayden Herrera, Frida's biographer, notes in an essay for Doyle New York that Kahlo signed letters to Bartoli "Maara". This is probably a shortened version of the nickname "Maravillosa". And Bartoli wrote to her under the name "Sonya". This conspiracy was an attempt to avoid the jealousy of Diego Rivera.

According to rumors, among other affairs, the artist was in a relationship with Isamu Noguchi and Josephine Baker. Rivera, who endlessly and openly cheated on his wife, turned a blind eye to her entertainment with women, but reacted violently to relationships with men.

Frida Kahlo's letters to José Bartoli have never been published. They reveal new information about one of the most important artists of the 20th century.

Frida Kahlo loved life. This love attracted men and women to her like a magnet. Excruciating physical suffering, a damaged spine constantly reminded of itself. But she found the strength to have fun from the heart and go wild. From time to time, Frida Kahlo had to go to the hospital, almost constantly wearing special corsets. Frida underwent over thirty surgeries during her lifetime.

The family life of Frida and Diego was seething with passions. They could not always be together, but never apart. They had a relationship, according to one of the friends, "passionate, obsessed and sometimes painful." In 1934, Diego Rivera cheated on Frida with her younger sister Cristina, who posed for him. He did this openly, realizing that he was insulting his wife, but did not want to break off relations with her. The blow for Frida was cruel. Proud, she did not want to share her pain with anyone - she just splashed it onto the canvas. The result was a picture, perhaps the most tragic in her work: a naked female body is excised with bloody wounds. Next to the knife in his hand, with an indifferent face, the one who inflicted these wounds. "Just a few scratches!" – the ironic Frida called the canvas. After Diego's betrayal, she decided that she also had the right to love interests.
This pissed off Rivera. Allowing himself liberties, he was intolerant of Frida's betrayals. The famous artist was morbidly jealous. Once, having caught his wife with the American sculptor Isama Noguchi, Diego pulled out a gun. Luckily, he didn't fire.

At the end of 1939, Frida and Diego officially divorced. “We have not stopped loving each other at all. I just wanted to be able to do what I want with all the women I liked.", - Diego wrote in his autobiography. And Frida admitted in one of her letters: “I can’t express how bad I feel. I love Diego, and the agony of my love will last a lifetime ... "

On May 24, 1940, an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Trotsky took place. Suspicion also fell on Diego Rivera. Warned by Paulette Goddard, he narrowly escaped arrest and managed to leave for San Francisco. There he painted a large panel depicting Goddard next to Chaplin, and not far from them ... Frida in the clothes of an Indian woman. He suddenly realized that their separation was a mistake.

Frida suffered a divorce hard, her condition deteriorated sharply. Doctors advised her to go to San Francisco for treatment. Rivera, having learned that Frida was in the same city with him, immediately came to visit her and announced that he was going to marry her again. And she agreed to become his wife again. However, she put forward conditions: they will not have sexual relations and they will conduct financial affairs separately. Together, they will only pay for household expenses. Here is such a strange marriage contract. But Diego was so happy to get his Frida back that he willingly signed this document.

Candidate of Art History, Deputy Head of the Department of Contemporary Art of the State Hermitage Museum

“The Frida Kahlo retrospective is a great success, museums stand in line for her exhibitions. All her heritage - 143 paintings, with about 250 graphics. At the same time, a significant part of them is cut off from the international exhibition career. The fact is that the collection of the Kalo Rivera Foundation - and this is all that was kept by her husband Diego Rivera - according to the charter, cannot leave Mexico; you can see these things mainly in the so-called "Blue House", arranged in Frida's family nest. Against this background, 34 works that arrived in St. Petersburg look very respectable.

The excitement around Kahlo's work arose before our eyes: in the 2000s, a biopic was released with Salma Hayek, Madonna, in whose collection there are two Fridas, declared her her favorite artist, fashion magazines began to print her photographs. In fact, Frida was quite successful during her lifetime: already at her first exhibition in a New York gallery, she sold almost all her works, but after her death in 1954, a period of some oblivion began. Interest in her work arose again in the 1970s, when an active study of women's art began and, at the same time, researchers of Latin American culture made a big breakthrough. There is a lot of talk now about her being ahead of her time: being a proto-feminist, working with the uncomfortable subject of the body, and raising issues that even today seem too personal and painful to portray and perceive.

The main thing in the work of Frida Kahlo is the strength of the spirit. This is the art of perseverance. She splashed out all her sufferings and troubles onto the canvas, for her it served as a kind of art therapy. As a curator, I am often asked: was she really deeply unhappy? If you read Frida's letters, she sparkles with witticisms - she had a great sense of humor, always looks to the future, always wants to work. I think she was happy."

Accident, 1926

On September 17, 1925, the bus in which 18-year-old Frida was traveling with her boyfriend collided with a tram. Many died, she survived, but received terrible injuries - numerous fractures, including the spine, and damage to internal organs: an iron rod that cut open her stomach deprived Kahlo of the opportunity to have children. After the accident, the girl was bedridden for a year - that's when she began to draw regularly. The stretcher, which allows her to do it lying down, was designed for her by her father, a German immigrant who made a living from photography. In some way, he also influenced her artistic style: Frida Kahlo is a very detailed artist, carefully prescribing blades of grass, teeth, circles. She, apparently, took out meticulousness from her father's photo studio, where she helped to color the pictures - such an occupation requires great concentration and a small brush.

Exactly a year after the accident, Kahlo created a popular print, typical of Mexico, depicting a tragic incident and a patron saint associated with the disaster. But in this picture there is no heavenly intercessor - Frida is alone in her pain and will be alone in it for the rest of her life.

Portrait of Virginia, 1929

Two events that determined the life of Frida Kahlo: a terrible accident and a meeting with Diego Rivera. She first saw him as a teenager when Rivera painted the school where she studied. In 1929, Frieda was twenty-two, he was twenty years older than her - they got married. He strongly supports her as an artist, and on his advice, Frida turns to the topic of the indigenous population of Mexico: he paints four portraits of Indian women, including a Virginia girl. By the way, another portrait from this series was the first work that Kahlo sold.

Here, a brighter gamma is used than on her early canvases, and on the back, out of economy, the artist sketched her self-portrait. It was finished on a different canvas, was called "Time Flies" and in 2000 went with Sotheby's to a private collection for $ 5 million - from that moment Frida Kahlo became the most expensive artist in Mexico, bypassing Rivera as well.

Attention to traditional culture, in general, not alien to Frida (her mother is of Indian blood), was also reflected in her manner of dressing. In her self-portraits, she often appears in the costume of a Tehuana, that is, a resident of the Tehuantepec region, inhabited by the Zapotec Indians. In these communities, a system close to matriarchy has been established: women own money and resources, they can trade while men work in the fields. Kahlo, as a freedom-loving nature, could not but appreciate this. In addition, long skirts successfully hid her lameness - after suffering from polio in childhood, one of the artist's legs was shorter than the other. In Mexico City, such outfits did not seem surprising - the Mexican elite then stood up for the revival of traditions, but in New York, Frida looked extraordinary and immediately became known as a style icon. At the exhibition at the Faberge Museum, we show two traditional Tehuana costumes - they did not belong to Frida, but come from the same workshop where she sewed her dresses. (You can see, for example, the authentic things of the artist, including a corset with the image of a sickle and a hammer and a decorated prosthesis. - Note. ed.)

Portrait of Luther Burbank, 1932

Luther Burbank is an American Michurin, a talented self-taught breeder who created about 800 new varieties of berries, fruits and vegetables. The Russet Burbank potato variety is still one of the most common in the United States, it is used in McDonald's. Frida and Diego were interested in Burbank's ideas (Rivera even placed him on the "Allegory of California" in the Stock Exchange tower in San Francisco), read his programmatic autobiography "The Harvest of Life", but never met him personally. Moreover, by the time Frida decided to paint this portrait, the breeder had been dead for several years. However, the couple went to the California estate of Burbank, in the garden of which he rested according to his will. So he is depicted - a hybrid of man and tree sprouted from the grave, who gained immortality in his deeds. To the right of the figure is the result of Burbank's experiments, a tree with giant fruits, to the left, for contrast, an ordinary one.

Burbank holds a philodendron bush in his hands, and this is not an accidental detail. Frida was well versed in botany: her library contained many books and atlases on the natural sciences, she looked after the huge garden at the house. The flora on her canvases is never arbitrary - the artist not only knew all these plants, but was also familiar with their symbolism. Philodendron in the Aztec culture was associated with fertility: it easily and quickly takes aerial roots, demonstrating an indestructible thirst for life. At the same time, some members of this family are poisonous and can cause hallucinations. The fact is that part of Burbank's belief in progress was the theory of the creation of a new man: if cultivation works so well with plants, then why not apply the same method to people. Frida found eugenics to be alien and distasteful, and according to some studies, this is what she emphasizes by including the potentially poisonous philodendron in the composition. The fact that the two leaves are depicted from the light, reverse side may also indicate the reverse side of Burbank's ideas.

Henry Ford Hospital, 1932

Shortly after her marriage to Rivera, Frida became pregnant, but for medical reasons she was forced to have an abortion. The second pregnancy also ended tragically: in 1932, in Detroit, where the Rivera Courtyard of the Art Institute, she had a miscarriage. Trying to comprehend what happened, for the first time in the history of art, she turned to the topic of the loss of a child. In the picture, naked Frida lies in a pool of blood in a hospital bed, and the objects connected to her by umbilical cords, in one way or another, tell about the experience. The fruit is a lost child, a boy, which was especially bitter, because little Diego, unlike the big Diego, would belong to her undividedly; snail - painfully creeping time in the hospital; the pelvic bones crushed in the accident is the reason why she couldn't bear it. The orchid refers to female sexuality and the reproductive system, and with the help of the image of a mechanical device, the artist, according to her, wanted to convey the mechanics of medical procedures, their coldness and cruelty.

Because of the imagery of this and other mature works, Frida Kahlo is often referred to as a Surrealist. Actually, Andre Breton himself persistently tried to enroll the artist in their ranks, calling her art “a ribbon tied to a bomb.” She herself in every possible way denied connection with this trend. If Breton's associates wanted to free themselves from the conscious, allowing fragments of dreams and nightmares to break out, Frida, on the contrary, tried to rationalize her feelings. In this sense, her approach is diametrically opposed to surrealism. The art of Frida Kahlo is coding, encryption, everything that has a lot of brain.

By the way, with the important work of Frida "Wounded Table" Wounded table, 1940, first shown at the Surrealist exhibition organized by Breton, a strange story happened. In 1955, the "Stol" went to an exhibition in Moscow and mysteriously disappeared along the way. It is only known for certain that the painting arrived in Russia, and for the last year I have been searching for traces of it in the archives.

A few scratches, 1935

Literally, the title of the work translates as “A few small injections”, but I took the liberty of adapting it for the exhibition - injections evoke hospital associations, but here we are talking about wounds that someone considers a trifle. Frida's wounds were inflicted by Diego. On her part, it was an all-consuming passion - just listen to her about her husband (the text written by Frida is recited by the artist. - Note. ed.). Despite the fact that Kahlo was constantly in the cycle of love stories, Rivera was for her the center of the world. Diego, an incorrigible liar and a womanizer, was careful about her talent, but casually about her feelings. He began to cheat on Frida immediately after the wedding. She quickly realized that there was nothing to be done about it, she just had to close her eyes. But the cup of patience overflowed when she found out about his relationship with Christina, her beloved younger sister. Frida was insulted, humiliated, disgraced.

Against this emotional background, a picture was painted, the impetus for the creation of which was a note about a woman killed by her husband out of jealousy. In court, he said: "Just a few scratches!". Although it was believed that the Mexican Revolution had liberated the woman by giving her more rights, the society of that time remained deeply patriarchal, and what is now called domestic violence was commonplace.

In the first sketch that Frida made for this painting, she follows the texture of the note: a man with a mustache, standing next to him is his crying little son. In the final version, the killer is given the features of the villain - Diego Rivera: these are his proportions, his favorite hat. He is dressed, while the victim is depicted naked, bloodied. This is, of course, Frida - torn and crushed. Her body is a bloody "still life" put on public display. Even the frame Kahlo covered with blood-red stains of paint to enhance the sense of horror from this crime. Despite everything, Frida reconciled with Christina. Rivera did not even think about stopping cheating on her, and in 1939 they divorced - only to get married again a year later.

My Nurse and I, 1937

The traditional interpretation of the work is based on the details of the artist’s childhood: just a couple of months after the birth of Frida, her mother became pregnant with her fourth daughter (the same Christina) and, having lost her milk, left the girl for a Mexican nanny. Hence a fairly common psychoanalytic interpretation: alienation and loneliness experienced by a child torn from its mother's breast. It is much more interesting to analyze this picture from the point of view of Frida's personal symbolic system. For example, a background of green leaves is a protective motif often found in Kahlo.

The pupa and the butterfly on the right side are the personification of death and resurrection of the soul, traditional for European still lifes, but on the left side you can see a more unusual insect, a stick insect from the ghost family. Ghosts survive due to the fact that they know how to mimic, pretending to be twigs and shoots. The desire to hide behind extravagant behavior was to some extent characteristic of Kahlo herself. In addition, stick insects hatch as adults, as does Frida, who is depicted as both a baby and an adult.

The powerful figure of the nurse resembles an Indian idol, and her face is covered with a ritual mask. Remembering how reverent the artist was about her roots, how important the heritage of the pre-Columbian era was for her, this hint at a connection with traditions is easy to read. The Mexican nurse carefully holds Frida in her arms, life-giving milk rain pours from above, in a word, the homeland is what gives Kahlo protection and strength.

Broken column, 1944

This is one of the most famous and publicized works of Frida Kahlo. Perhaps because it does not need further explanation - this is an expressive manifesto of resilience before the blows of fate, an image of strength. The backdrop for the self-portrait is the Pedregal Plateau, a volcanic desert landscape southwest of Mexico City. This dry, barren land appears in many of Kahlo's 1940s works: cracks in the soil rhyme with cracks in her soul and body. At this time, due to numerous operations, Frida had to wear orthopedic corsets. In her self-portrait, in place of a broken spine, Frida depicts a broken column, the edges of the wound are painted scarlet, the nails stuck into the body symbolize not only physical pain, but also mental suffering. Nevertheless, she stands straight and openly looks at the viewer.

Portrait of engineer Eduardo Morillo Safa, 1944

We owe much to this man for the exhibition at the Faberge Museum: the agronomist and diplomat Eduardo Morillo Safa was a great friend of Frida and collected her paintings. In total, he bought about 35 of her works, which later moved to the Dolores Olmedo Museum, this collection provided the backbone for the St. Petersburg exhibition. At some point, Morillo Safa commissioned Kahlo to paint portraits of his family members - mother, wife, son, two daughters - and his own. It is curious that in this work Frida does not use any symbols that reveal the identity of the person depicted. This is typical of all male portraits made by the artist - the face, the costume, that's all. Symbolic men, apparently, are not inherent. This is especially evident in comparison with mother's portrait diplomat, Doña Rosita Morillo, rich in visual props: her status as a matriarch is emphasized by many details, for example, Doña Rosita knits the fabric of her family's fate. Actually, at this exhibition, the portrait of Morillo Safa hangs between the portrait of his mother and the self-portrait of Frida - again, the fate of a man.

Self-portrait with a monkey, 1945

Diego offends Frida again, she is sad - and defends herself with a necklace of her favorite creatures and things. The monkey is the substitute for the child she couldn't have. There have always been many animals in the Blue House: monkeys, parrots, bald dogs of the Sholoitzcuintle breed, one of which is depicted in the picture. The Aztecs kept these dogs at temples as sacred animals and served their meat at ceremonial feasts, and in the first half of the 20th century, in the wake of the rise of national consciousness, the Xoloitzcuintle became fashionable pets among the Mexican elite. Both the Sholoitzcuintle and the Indian deity connect the artist with her roots, the traditions of ancient Mexico. The charms that protect Frida from suffering are wrapped in a yellow ribbon, but it all starts with a nail, which probably refers to the expression estar clavado - “to be deceived” (clavo, “nail” in Spanish).

Circle, 1954

The sad point of the exhibition. In 1953, Frieda's right leg was amputated knee-deep to stop the onset of gangrene. She drowned out physical suffering with alcohol and strong painkillers, which was reflected in her manner of writing. Attention to details is gone - the dissolution of the crippled figure in space is conveyed by torn, chaotic strokes. In her diary at this time, she writes "I am disintegration." And this is no longer a natural return to earth - as on self-portrait the mid-1940s, where plants sprout peacefully through her flesh while painfully decaying. In the same year that The Circle was written, Frida Kahlo died.

Frida Kahlo de Rivera (07/06/1907, Mexico City, Mexico - 07/13/1954, Mexico City, Mexico) - full name Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo Calderon is a Mexican artist best known for her self-portraits.

Biography of Frida Kahlo.

Frida Kahlo was born into a large family of photographer, Guillermo Kahlo, with German roots. Her mother, Matilda Calderon, was a Mexican of Indian origin. At the age of 6, Frida falls ill with polio, after which there is a complication in the form of lameness for life.
In 1922, Frida entered one of the best Mexican schools called "Preparatory", where she studied medicine. At this school, she met her future husband, the already famous artist Diego Rivera.
In September 1925, an accident occurred that divided Frida Kahlo's life into "before" and "after": the bus the artist was traveling on collided with a tram. In this disaster, young Frida receives many severe injuries: a triple fracture of the spine, a fracture of the collarbone, several broken ribs, a fracture of the pelvis, a crushed right leg and foot. In that number, she received stab wounds with metal railings in the stomach. Frida underwent many operations, after which she lay in hospitals for months.
From this moment, her formation as an artist begins: being bedridden, Frida asks her father to give her brushes, paints and canvases. A stretcher was built on the bed so that one could write lying down, and a mirror was hung over the bed. So Frida became her own model and subject of study. Her first work was a self-portrait. Subsequently, Frida Kahlo only worked in this direction.
At the age of 21, Frida Kahlo joins the Mexican Communist Party. A year later, Diego Rivera proposes to the artist, and soon marries her. Despite the big difference in age, they were brought together by common interests in art, and common political views. In 1930, Diego received an invitation to work in the United States, to which he agreed, and Frida followed her husband to America for a long 4 years, where she began to keenly feel her Mexican roots, a special love for Mexican folk art and national costumes, which she began to wear everywhere.
In 1937, already in Mexico, Frida and Diego give shelter and asylum in their house to Lev Trotsky, who was expelled from the Soviet Union.
In 1939, Frida takes part in the Mexican exhibition in Paris, where she immediately becomes the center of attention, and the Louvre acquires her painting.
In the 1940s, the work of Frida Kahlo took part in many significant exhibitions. During this period, the artist's state of health worsened, and the prescribed treatment, which was designed to relieve pain, caused strong changes in mental and psychological terms.
In 1953, a personal exhibition of the artist was held, to which Frida arrived in a hospital bed, since at that time she could no longer walk. And after this event, an operation followed: gangrene began on the right leg, and it had to be amputated almost to the knee.
On July 13, 1954, Frida Kahlo died of pneumonia. There is much controversy over the cause of death, as no post-mortem autopsy was performed. There is an assumption that the death of a Mexican artist from life is associated with a drug overdose. The farewell ceremony with Frida was held at the Palace of Fine Arts, which was attended even by the President of Mexico, Lazaro Cardenas.
In 1955, the house in Coyoacan where Frida lived, the "Blue House", acquired the status of a museum.

Biography and personal life Frida Kahlo. When born, day and cause of death Frida Memorable places. Frida Kahlo - "the mother of the selfie"? Quotes, paintings by the artist, Photo and video.

Frida Kahlo years of life:

born July 6, 1907, died July 13, 1954

Epitaph

"You will always be alive on earth,
You will always be a rebellious dawn
heroic flower
All future dawns."

From a sonnet by the Mexican poet Carlos Pellicer dedicated to Frida Kahlo

Biography of Frida Kahlo

When the boys teased her as a child "Frida is a wooden leg", she just put a few stockings on her sore leg to make it look healthy, and ran to play football in the yard. This was all Frida - strong, daring, not allowing herself to be broken by anyone and nothing, even diseases. Then, when she got married, she began to wear long national dresses - in them she looked irresistible and her husband liked her.

Frida Kahlo - The Mother of the Selfie

Biography of Frida Kahlo was full of tragic events - as a child she had polio, and at 18 she got into severe accident, after which she had two broken hips, a leg and a damaged spine. But this did not break Frida, contrary to the forecasts of doctors - she recovered. It took months to recover. Lying in bed, Frida asked her father for the first time for paint and began to paint. Over the girl's bed hanging mirror in which she could see herself, and the future famous artist started with self-portraits: "I write myself because I am the subject that I know best." At 22, she entered the most prestigious university in Mexico, where she met her future husband, Diego Rivera. Thus began a new, complete love, passion and pain page in the biography of Frida.

Diego loved Frida, but the relationship that connected the spouses was always not only passionate, but rather obsessed and painful. Her husband often cheated on Frida, including with her younger sister. The pain that Frida experienced in her family life, she spilled into creativity- her the pictures were bright, painful, tragic and perhaps, therefore, even more beautiful. The unfaithful Diego, however, did not tolerate his wife's reciprocal betrayals in turn - once, having caught her with her lover-sculptor, he even drew a pistol, but, fortunately, everything worked out.

Despite all her suffering, she always kept a lively, cheerful character - she had a great sense of humor, she constantly laughed, made fun of herself and her friends and had parties. And all the time she continued to struggle with physical pain - she often lay in the hospital, wore special corsets, underwent several operations on the spine, after one of which permanently left in a wheelchair. After a while, Frida lost her right leg - she was amputated to the knee. But soon, on first solo exhibition, artist Frida Kahlo laughed and joked, as usual. As if in opposition to In the paintings of Frida Kahlo, the artist never smiled.

Death of Frida Kahlo came a week after she celebrated her 47th birthday. Frida Kahlo's cause of death was pneumonia. At the funeral of Frida Kahlo, which took place with all the pomp at the Palace of Fine Arts, was attended not only by her husband, but also by famous artists, writers, and even former Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas. Frida Kahlo's grave does not exist- her body was cremated, and the urn with the ashes is in the house of Frida Kahlo, now Frida Kahlo Museum. The last words in Frida's diary were: "I hope that the departure will be successful and I will not return."

Frida with her husband Diego Rivera

Frida Kahlo lifeline

July 6, 1907 Date of birth of Frida Kahlo de Rivera.
September 17, 1925 Accident.
1928 Joining the Mexican Communist Party.
1929 Marriage to artist Diego Rivera.
1937 Romance with Leon Trotsky.
1939 A trip to Paris to participate in a thematic exhibition of Mexican art, a divorce from Diego Rivera.
1940 Remarriage to Diego.
1953 The first solo exhibition of Frida Kahlo in Mexico.
July 13, 1954 Date of death of Frida Kahlo.

Memorable places

1. National Preparatory School, where Frida Kahlo studied.
2. National Institute of Mexico, where Frida Kahlo studied.
3. Studio "Churubusco" in Mexico, where they filmed a film about Frida Kahlo with Salma Hayek in the title role.
4. Frida Kahlo House, which later became the Frida Kahlo Museum.
5. Palace of Fine Arts, where the farewell to Frida Kahlo took place.
6. Civil pantheon "Dolores", where the body of Frida Kahlo was cremated.

Cases, episodes of life

dreamed to have children, but terrible injuries did not allow her to do so. She tried again and again, but all three pregnancies ended tragically. After another loss of a child, she took up the brush and began draw children. Mostly dead - this is how the artist tried to come to terms with her tragedy.

Frida Kahlo knew Trotsky. In 1937, when Trotsky and his family were expelled from the USSR, Frida and Diego received them in their "blue house". According to rumors, the sixty-year-old revolutionary was carried away by the extravagant and cheerful Frida in earnest - he wrote passionate letters to her, all the time trying to be alone with her. According to one version, Frida somehow admitted that she was “tired of the old man” and broke off relations with Trotsky, according to another, she nevertheless entered into a love affair with him, but Natalya Sedova, Trotsky’s wife, was able to return her husband to the bosom of the family and demanded that they leave the "blue house" of hospitable Mexican hosts together.

Painting by Frida Kahlo "Self-portrait with a necklace of thorns"

Testaments

“I laugh at death so that it does not take away the best that is in me ...”
"Anxiety, grief, pleasure, death are, in fact, one and always one way to exist."

Documentary about Frida Kahlo

condolences

“At four in the morning she complained that she was very ill. When the doctor arrived in the morning, he stated that shortly before his arrival she had died of a pulmonary embolism. When I entered the room to look at her, her face was calm and even more beautiful than ever. The night before, she had given me the ring she had bought for her twenty-fifth anniversary, seventeen days before that date. I asked her why she was giving away the gift so early and she replied, "Because I feel like I'm leaving you very soon." But, although Frida understood that she was dying, she still had to fight for her life. Otherwise, why would death take her breath away while she slept?
Diego Rivera, husband of Frida Kahlo

“July 13, 1954 was the most tragic day of my life. I lost my beloved Frida forever... Now it's too late, I realize that the most wonderful part of my life was my love for Frida."
Diego Rivera, husband of Frida Kahlo

Frida is dead. Frida is dead. A brilliant and self-willed creature, she passed away. The amazing artist has left us; disturbing spirit, generous heart, sensitivity in living flesh, love to the last for art, she is one with Mexico ... Friend, sister of people, the great daughter of Mexico, is still alive ... You stayed to live ... "
Andres Iduarte, Mexican essayist