Self-portraits.
Therefore, placing here all the self-portraits of Kahlo from my collection of reproductions, I will just "dotted" run through her life, quoting those facts and lines about the self-portraits themselves that I considered interesting.
Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo
Full name - Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderon
Frida Kahlo (photo)
Mexican artist, wife of painter Diego Rivera.
Frida Kahlo's style combines elements of surrealism and Mexican folk art.
At the age of eighteen, on September 17, 1925, she was in a car accident: her bus collided with a tram, and a broken iron rod of the tram's current collector stuck in her stomach and went out in her groin, crushing her hip bone. The girl received multiple injuries and fractures, she had to spend about a year in the hospital.
Frida Kahlo Self portrait 1922
Frieda was bored in the hospital and asked her father to bring a brush and paints. A special stretcher was made for Frida, which allowed her to write lying down. A large mirror was attached under the canopy of the bed so that Frida could see herself. She began with self-portraits, which became the main theme in her work.
Frida presented in numerous self-portraits her physical suffering and emotional experiences (one of the reasons for which was the inability to have children).
The style of the first portraits (for example, "Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress", 1926) was influenced by Mexican portraiture of the 19th century, originating in European fine art.
Frida Kahlo Self Portrait in a Velvet Dress 1926 Alejandro Gomez Aries Collection Mexico City
1930s
Kahlo painted 142 paintings in her lifetime, 55 of them self-portraits.
The artist herself explained it this way: “I paint myself because I spend a lot of time alone and because I am the topic that I know best.”
She spoke of herself as a woman who "had given birth to herself."
Over the next thirty years, Frida underwent 32 surgeries, and health problems remained with her for the rest of her life.
In 1928, she showed her work to the already venerable artist Diego Rivera.
“It was obvious to me that this girl was a born artist,” the venerable artist will say.
They got married the following year. The marriage was not cloudless: both were quick-tempered, with a hot southern temperament.
The couple spent 4 years in the USA, where Diego fulfilled the order, and Frida suffered several unsuccessful pregnancies.
After her second miscarriage, she painted "Henry Ford Hospital" (1932).
Frida Kahlo Henry Ford Hospital 1932
A snail hovers over the head of the bed. This is a symbol of the slow course of a failed pregnancy. The purple orchid, depicted in the center under the bed, was brought to Frieda by Diego in the hospital. Although the motives of the painting are depicted carefully and in detail, the composition as a whole avoids realistic lifelikeness.
For Frida, it is much more important to convey an emotional state than to capture a real situation. She depicted reality not as she saw it, but as she felt it.
Self-portraits served Frida as a means of expressing emotions, experiences and pain - both physical and mental.
These very personal images reflect her state of mind and inner world.
In self-portraits, Kahlo often appears from the same angle. Her face, with thick dark eyebrows, often resembles a mask. In addition, she painted herself both in full growth and in a fictional surreal environment.
Frida Kahlo Self Portrait 1930 Museum of Fine Arts Boston
Frida Kahlo Frida and Diego Rivera 1931 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Frida Kahlo Self-portrait on the border between Mexico and the United States 1932 Manuel Reyero Collection New York
In "Self-portrait on the border between Mexico and the United States" (1932), Frida expressed her views and thoughts of that period, her attitude towards America, showed her isolation from her homeland.
She stands like a statue on a pedestal, on the border between two different worlds.
On the left side is a landscape of ancient Mexico, where the forces of nature and natural life cycles rule. On the right we see the landscape of North America, where technology reigns.
Frida holds a Mexican flag in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Clouds in the Mexican sky echo the puffs of smoke billowing from the chimneys of Ford's factories, and lush vegetation on the left gives way to patterns of electrical equipment on the right, whose wires turn into roots that suck energy from the earth. And Frida is torn between these two opposites.
Frida Kahlo Frida in the operating room 1932
Frida Kahlo My Nurse and I 1937
Frida Kahlo Memory 1937
Self-portraits of Frida Kahlo helped her to form an idea of herself, to find a way to self-knowledge. The face of the artist almost always does not show feelings and mood. Her works should be considered as metaphorical summaries of concrete experiences. She draws her techniques from Mexican folk art and pre-Columbian culture.
Frida Kahlo Self Portrait with Beads 1933 Gelman Collection Mexico City
Frida Kahlo Self Portrait with Kama 1937 Gelman Collection, USA
Frida Kahlo Self-portrait in a letter to Leon Trotsky 1937 National Museum Woman in Art USA
Frida Kahlo does not smile in any self-portrait: a serious, even mournful face, fused thick eyebrows, a slightly noticeable mustache over tightly compressed sensual lips.
The ideas of her paintings are encrypted in the details, the background, the figures that appear next to Frida. The symbolism of Kahlo is based on national traditions and is closely connected with the Indian mythology of the pre-Hispanic period, since Frida brilliantly knew the history of her homeland.
Frida Kahlo Self Portrait with Monkey 1938 Albrecht Knox de Buffalo Gallery New York
Frida Kahlo Self-portrait 1938 National Museum of Modern Art Center Georges Pompidou Paris
Frida Kahlo Self Portrait with Dog 1938 Private Collection
After returning to Mexico in late 1933, there was a serious conflict between Kahlo and Rivera over the latter's many love affairs.
Frida existed at the intersection of races, genders and sexuality. She was born to a white father - a Hungarian Jew originally from Germany, and a Mexican of mixed blood, including an Indian. Frida described herself as a racial and sexual "mestiza" - mestiza.
In 1935, Kahlo left their common home. In 1938, she divorced Rivera.
One of her self-portraits is called "Two Fridas": the Mexican and European Fridas on it are connected by one heart for two.
The painting was painted in 1939 after her divorce from Diego, in this self-portrait the artist shows her experiences, the state of mind of an abandoned woman.
Frida Kahlo Self portrait. Two Fridas. 1939 Museum of Contemporary Art Mexico City USA
This is how the picture is described on the site lookatme.ru(I note that the descriptions of many paintings are taken from here):
“That part of her being that Diego Rivera respected and loved, the Mexican Frida in a Tehuan dress, is holding a medallion with a portrait of her husband as a child. Sitting next to her is her alter ego, the European Frida in a lacy white dress. The hearts of two women are on display, with only one thin artery connecting them. With the loss of her lover, the European Frida lost a part of herself. Blood drips from a freshly cut artery, held in place only by a surgical clamp. There is a danger that the rejected Frida may bleed to death."
1940s
In 1939, André Breton and Marcel Duchamp staged an exhibition of Frida's work in Paris.
It took place in the well-known gallery of Renu and Collet, but in Europe it already smelled of war, so the exhibition was not a financial success. Because of this, Frida canceled her next exhibition at the Guggenheim Gallery in London. Nevertheless, Frida's Self-Portrait "Rama" (1937) was the first work by a Mexican artist of the 20th century acquired by the Louvre.
Experts believe that the forties are the era of the artist's heyday, the time of her most interesting and mature works.
Frida Kahlo Son 1940 private collection, New York
Frida often painted herself with a masculinely stern expression and exaggerated mustache - and at the same time in a feminine outfit and pose. In her youth, she dressed in men's clothes and was captured in this form in several family portraits. Later, the dress-up game was repeated during her divorce from Rivera, in the painting “Self-portrait with cropped hair” (1940), where Frida depicted herself in a man's suit and with cut hair, but in women's shoes and earrings, as if combining the feminine and masculine principles, serving as a bridge between the floors.
In "Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair," Frida demonstrated her independence, gained after a divorce.
Frida Kahlo Self-portrait with cropped hair 1940 Museum of modern art. NY
Frida Kahlo Self Portrait 1940 Gelman Collection, USA
Frida Kahlo Self Portrait 1940
Frida Kahlo Self-portrait with a letter to Dr. Elosser 1940 Private collection
Frida decided to plunge into work. In the next few years, a number of self-portraits appeared, differing only in attributes, backgrounds, colors, through which the mood of the artist is expressed.
Frida Kahlo Self Portrait with Hummingbird 1940 University of Texas Museum USA
Frida Kahlo Self Portrait with Braids 1941 Natasha Gelman Collection Mexico City
Frida Kahlo Self Portrait with My Parrots 1941 Private Collection New Orleans
Frida Kahlo Self Portrait 1941 Gelman Collection, USA
Self-portrait "Roots" was painted by Frida Kahlo in oil on sheet metal in 1943 after her remarriage to Diego Rivera. In 2006, at a Sotheby's auction in New York, the painting was sold for $5.5 million.
Frida Kahlo Roots 1943 Marilyn Lubetkin Collection
Frida Kahlo Self Portrait 1943 private collection
Frida Kahlo Self Portrait with Monkeys 1943 Gelman Collection Mexico City
Frida Kahlo Self-portrait of Diego in Thought 1943 Jacob and Natasha Gelman Collection Mexico City
Frida Kahlo Self portrait. Broken Column 1944 Collection Dolores Olmedo Mexico City
Since 1943, Frida began teaching at the School of Painting and Sculpture, but after a few months, due to poor health, she had to wear a steel corset and conduct classes at home.
This corset became the center of her self-portrait "Broken Column" (1944).
Art critics give the following description of the depicted:
The straps of the corset seem to be the only thing that keeps the parts of the body cracked in half in an upright position. The Ionic column, broken into several pieces, takes the place of the damaged spine. The lifeless cracked landscape echoes the gaping crack in the body, which becomes a symbol of her pain and loneliness. Nails stuck in the face and body appeal to the images of the martyrdom of St. Sebastian pierced by arrows. The white cloth wrapped around the hips echoes the Shroud of Christ. She borrows elements of Christian iconography to give a particularly dramatic expression to her pain and suffering.
Frida Kahlo Little doe. Self-portrait. 1946 Carolina Farb Collection Houston US
In 1946, Kahlo underwent an operation in New York, but this did not help. After an unsuccessful attempt at healing, Kahlo painted a picture, presenting herself in the form of a deer mortally wounded by arrows ("Wounded Deer", 1946).
Frida Kahlo Self Portrait 1946 Private Collection Mexico City
Frida Kahlo Self Portrait with Loose Hair 1947 private collection
Frida Kahlo Self-portrait 1948 Private collection
Frida Kahlo Diego and Me 1949 Marie Anna Martin Gallery New York
In May 2014, one of Kahlo's self-portraits was put up for auction, tentatively valued at $7 million. By the will of fate, having failed to become a doctor, Frida Kahlo became a great artist. A lot of suffering fell on this beautiful Mexican woman. She painted while chained to a hospital bed. And always this strong woman aspired to victory.
Caloism.
Today, the shocking paintings of Frida Kahlo are valued very highly, in millions of dollars. The phenomenal popularity of Frida's work even got its name - caloism. Many celebrities of show business are considered to be his supporters. For example, in the house of the Madonna hangs a painting by Frida "My Birth", depicting the bloody head of the artist herself between the spread legs of her mother. According to this picture, Madonna evaluates people: “If someone does not like this picture, I lose all interest in this person. He will never be my friend." Another admirer of Kahlo - Salma Hayek, to play the main role in the film "Frida", became a producer, she herself persuaded Antonio Banderas and Edward Norton to act in film. They say that for this role, Salma even grew a mustache, shaving the fluff above her lip. Even during her lifetime, Frida Kahlo became a legend and an idol for many people. And only she knows what it cost her.
Frida Kahlo: "My Birth" Mexican artist. Childhood of Frida Kahlo. Drama.
Frida had three birthdays. According to the documents, she was born on July 6, 1907. But the artist herself assured that she was born at the same time as the Mexican Revolution, that is, in 1910. Frida's father was a photographer and often took his daughter to work, where he taught retouching.
Frida became disabled at the age of six. Due to polio, her right leg was deformed. The future great artist tried to hide this shortcoming by pulling extra stockings over her leg or wearing men's suits and long dresses. But at school, she was still teased by the offensive nickname “Frida the Bone Leg.” The girl was angry, but did not fall into despair: she went in for boxing, played football, swam. If it became unbearably sad, then Frida would go to the window, breathe on it and draw on the misted glass the door behind which her only best friend was waiting for her, a figment of the imagination of a lonely child. Only to this friend Frida could reveal her tormented soul. Together they dreamed, cried and laughed. Many years later, Frida Kahlo wrote in her diary: “I copied her movements when she danced, I talked to her about everything, and she knew everything about me. Every time I remember her, she resurrects in me.”
Little Frida Kahlo The third birth of Frida Kahlo.
On her own initiative, a fifteen-year-old girl entered a prestigious school to study medicine. For women of that time, this was not the most common decision - there were only 35 female students out of two thousand students. Frida immediately became popular. She even created her own closed student group Kachuchas, which included creative youth. The guys lost their heads at one glance at this black-eyed beauty with lush braids. It seemed like life was getting better. But it was an illusion. All her life Frida was connected with medicine, but not as a doctor, but as a patient. (You can visit the Frida Museum in ours)
Just a few scratches, 1935 On September 17, 1925, Frida Kahlo was returning from class by bus and had a serious accident. A metal rod pierced through the fragile body of a seventeen-year-old beauty, breaking her hips, crushing her pelvic bones and damaging her spine. The leg, withered by polio, was broken in eleven places, and the left foot was crushed. Bloodied Frida lay on the rails, and no one believed that she would survive. But the girl won again - she escaped from the clutches of death. This was her third birth.
Without hope, 1945 The new life became endlessly painful. Frida tried to drown out the terrible pains in her back and legs with drugs and alcohol, while destroying herself. For thirty years of life after the accident - thirty surgical operations. However, the most difficult were the first months of rehabilitation, when she was chained to a hospital bed and immobilized with a special corset. Only the hands remained free from plaster bandages. Frida asked her father to bring her brushes and paints. The father complied with his daughter's request and made her a special stretcher that allows her to draw while lying down. The only plot available within the hospital ward was the image of Frida herself in the mirror opposite the bed. Then Frida decided to paint self-portraits.
Self-portraits.
More than half of Frida Kahlo's works are self-portraits. Her work is a confession, striking in its frankness. With the help of a brush and paints, Frida encrypted her emotions, thoughts, hopes and sorrows. She is not smiling in any of the pictures.
Critics called her style of writing a mixture of propaganda poster elegance, bazaar simplicity and deep metaphysics. The surrealists considered the artist to be their own, but Frida objected: "The surrealists paint dreams, and I paint my own reality."
Already in the late 1930s, the Louvre bought the painting by the artist. In 1979, the painting "Tree of Hope" went under the hammer (the price of the auction reached fifteen thousand dollars). Twenty years later, one of Kahlo's self-portraits was bought for two hundred thousand dollars. After her death, her work began to sell for much more. An example of this is "Self-Portrait with a Monkey and a Parrot", sold to an unknown collector at the famous Sotheby's auction for $4.9 million.
Fulang Chang and me, 1937 Elephant and dove.
The first person who appreciated the undoubted talent of Frida Kahlo was the Mexican artist Diego Rivera - the only love of his life. Although Frida called her husband "the second accident" (she considered the first to be a car accident). Diego was twice as old and twice as big as little Frida, who was only 153 centimeters tall. For the first time, the artist saw him at school, where Rivera painted the walls. Even then, the girl told her friends that she would definitely marry him and give birth to children for him.
Diego Riviera and Frida Kahlo Diego Rivera was a very large man, like a kind giant. He often drew himself in the form of a pot-bellied frog with someone's heart in his paw, which characterized Diego as a desperate ladies' man. Oddly enough, women adored Diego. Frida Kahlo became his third wife. Together they looked very strange. Friends called this married couple "elephant and dove". Diego's character was disgusting. Already on the day of the wedding, drunk, he threw the first family scandal with firing a pistol.
Diego and Frida, 1931 Frida, in spite of everything, loved her husband very much, painted him all the time and dedicated poems to him.
Diego Rivera was a convinced communist, which also infected Frida. She even joined the Mexican Communist Party. The famous "blue house" of the spouses was located in the bohemian area of the Mexican capital. This house was visited by almost all famous artists, writers, musicians and politicians who came to Mexico. Leon Trotsky also visited the family couple, who fell in love with a young artist and even wrote lyrical letters to her. Diego and Frida had noisy parties, and their names did not leave the pages of the press. However, pompous and beautiful on the outside, from the inside, their life was not at all cloudless. Frida really wanted to have a baby, but after three miscarriages, this dream faded away.
Frida in the hospital Despite the fact that Frida adored her husband, it was said that she regularly cheated on him, and not only with men. Diego also did not keep marital fidelity. Unlike his wife, he did not hide his love affairs, which caused unbearable pain to the proud Frida. After Diego seduced Cristina Kahlo (Frida's younger sister) in 1939, the couple divorced.
Frida Kahlo and Diego Riviera After the divorce, Frida Kahlo continued to write. Her paintings were full of suffering and black humor. Frida and Diego could not live apart for a long time - a year later they got married again and did not part until the death of the artist.
Posthumous show.
This fragile, crippled, but not broken by fate woman lived only forty-seven years, thirty of which were filled with pain. During the attacks, she drank, swearing and selflessly drew.
Despite suffering, she continued to throw lively parties. Frida loved to joke - including on herself. Her first and last solo exhibition took place in 1953, just a year before the artist's death. And shortly before this significant event, Frida Kahlo's leg was amputated almost to the knee, as gangrene began. The doctors forbade her to get up, but she could not help but come to her triumph and insisted on a trip. Accompanied by an escort of motorcyclists, under the howl of sirens in an ambulance, Frida arrived at the exhibition. The doctors carried her in on a stretcher and laid her on a couch in the center of the room. There the woman spent the evening meeting and entertaining guests with jokes. She told reporters, “I am not sick, I am broken. But as long as I can hold a brush, I'm happy."
Frida writes from the comfort of her hospital bed This event shocked the whole world, but even more, Frida staged a posthumous show on July 13, 1954. When the artist's admirers came to the crematorium to say goodbye to Frida Kahlo, an unexpectedly strong gust of hot air lifted her body vertically, her hair curled into a halo, and her lips, as it seemed to everyone present, folded into a mocking smile. She stood like that for a while before sinking into the fire and forever turning to ashes.
The official cause of death of the great artist is pneumonia, but there were rumors of suicide. It was rumored that after the amputation of her leg, her pain became completely unbearable. Frida was again “imprisoned” in a corset, but the mutilated spine could not bear the load from the weight of the body. Frida, always fought for her life. She just couldn't give up willingly. She was a great woman, despite her terrible position.
In the "blue house" museum Frida Kahlo in Mexico, you can see her workplace: a table, brushes, paints, a mirror. “All her paintings are selfies,” tourists joke, since most of the works are self-portraits.
Kahlo's work is a diary where the artist, without any hesitation, practically turns her soul inside out.
In Frida's self-portraits - the incessant pain in the spine, the betrayal of her husband, a famous artist Diego Rivera(who not only constantly cheated on Frida, but even managed to cheat on her with her own sister), the impossibility of becoming a mother (due to poor health, all her pregnancies ended in miscarriages or abortions), the loss of a leg and a feeling of closeness to death. Nevertheless, people who know Frida remember: a person more in love with life had to be looked for in the world.At the age of 6, Frida suffered from polio, due to which one leg became shorter than the other, lameness appeared. But Kahlo was determined to prove that she was no worse than others: despite the constant aching pain, she was engaged in boxing, football and swimming. In everyday life, she hid her legs in long skirts.
Source: Public Domain
At the age of 15, she was selected to one of the best schools in Mexico, intending to study medicine. At the same time, she began to paint, met the artist Diego Rivera, who painted the walls of the school. Rivera became the main love of her life. An ugly plump man, 20 years older than Frida, he had some kind of hypnotic charm and simply drove women crazy: Kahlo could not resist. She firmly decided that she would become his wife. For Diego, she was another student in love with him.
On September 17, 1925, Frida's life changed once and for all. On a typical day, she, along with a friend, got into an ordinary Mexican bus (very “flimsy”, with wooden walls) and went about her business. The bus collided with a trolley bus. Of the passengers, Frida suffered the most: one of the handrails practically pierced the girl through and through, injured her spine, pierced through her pelvic bone, and broke her legs in several places.
Source: Public DomainThe doctors of the hospital where the crippled Frida was brought were sure that she would not live long. But Frida has been used to fighting since childhood. She did not die, and even slowly went on the mend. Immobilized, since most of her body was shackled in plaster, she could move her arms, and then her parents brought her paints, brushes and canvas. Also, a mirror. Frida painted her own plaster and then painted her first self-portrait. Why did she portray herself? Because at that moment her world had narrowed down to a hospital bed and her own body. “I am the topic that I know best,” the artist will later say.
Frida gradually begins to walk again, draws a lot. He is fond of communist ideology - in those years in Mexico, this trend was incredibly fashionable. At one of the parties, Frida again ran into Diego Rivera, the very artist whom she had promised herself to marry even before the accident. Diego was drunk, outrageous and charming. In addition, an enthusiastic communist - at that time, Rivera was the secretary of the Mexican Communist Party. Frida did everything to attract attention. And soon became his mistress, and then his wife. She called this love one of two disasters in her life. The first is the same accident.
Source: Public Domain
The marriage of Rivera and Kahlo was not easy - Diego constantly cheated, although he swore his love to his wife. Even at the wedding, Frida was forced to endure the presence of several of his former mistresses. The artist never hid his betrayals and never apologized for them.
The communist Rivera is invited to work in the USA, and Frida goes with him. A few years spent in a capitalist country only strengthen her passion for communism. And Frida is immersed deeper and deeper into the national culture - she used to write in a manner close to the folk art of Mexico, and life abroad, in contrast, brought her even closer to national traditions.
Source: Public Domain
Frida begins to collect monuments of ancient Mexican culture. And a long skirt with a national ornament has long become her signature outfit. After all, she hid the injuries received by the artist so well.
Source: Public Domain
Critics appreciated the transformation of Kahlo - they started talking about Frida all over the world.
In 1937, when Frida and Diego had already returned to Mexico, they sheltered the disgraced Leon Trotsky. Both admired the "tribune of the Russian revolution." According to rumors, an affair even broke out between Kahlo and Trotsky, but there is practically no evidence for this story. As there is no evidence of Frida's involvement in the death of Trotsky - but such rumors periodically appeared.
Frida knew how to charm: according to the memoirs of her contemporaries, she, despite the almost constant pain and new and new operations that were required to maintain her health, loved to joke, have fun, laugh to the point of exhaustion, throw parties, drink, smoke and did not at all strive to follow the recommendations doctors. Sadness, longing, unfulfilled hopes - she left all this to her paintings.
Source: Public Domain
Kahlo dreamed of a child, but poor health did not allow her to endure and give birth. Frida writes herself in a hospital bed, and outside - flying, but connected to her by the umbilical cord - are an unborn embryo, broken pelvic bones, a withered flower and other objects symbolizing the impossibility of motherhood for her.
What are Frida Kahlo's "selfies" hiding?
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Frida Kahlo(07/06/1907 - 07/13/1954) - Mexican artist, known for her self-portraits. During her life, she wrote 55 self-portraits, which is an absolute record (for which Frida is jokingly called a "selfie lover"). The art style is naive art (or folk art) and surrealism. Frida herself did not consider herself a surrealist: "I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my reality"
. The artist's paintings are a kind of diary that tells about her life and feelings.
The painting is called "My grandparents, my parents and me", 1936.
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Yes, it was thanks to these people that the talented and outrageous Frida Kahlo was born. Her sky-blue ancestral home, located in Mexico City, is now a museum where you can get acquainted with the work and difficult life of the artist. Please note that in this picture, Frida depicts herself as a girl of about six years old, and her right leg is partially covered by a tree, which visually makes her left. In fact, this is no accident. It was at this age that the artist contracted polio, which left her with a limp. and her right leg became much thinner than the left (Kalo hid this flaw under long skirts). Peers teased her "Frida is a wooden leg." The artist already then showed her strong-willed character and love of life - she was engaged in boxing, swimming, playing football with the guys.
"Broken Column", 1944
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Broken column, instead of a spine. Nails piercing the body. Tears on eyes. A fatal event that affected the whole life of the artist.
It was September 1925 outside. Frida was then 18 years old. She and a friend were on the bus, cheerfully discussing plans for the future, when the collision happened. The bus driver lost control and crashed into a tram. The artist received serious injuries: fractures of the spine, ribs, collarbone, her right leg was broken in eleven places. Moreover, the metal handrail pierced the artist's stomach and uterus, which affected her reproductive function.
Frida underwent dozens of surgeries and was bedridden for months. Pain, longing and loneliness prompted me to paint (Frida studied medicine at one of the best schools in Mexico, where she first saw her future husband, Diego Rivera, who worked on the "Creation" painting at this school). So her father made a stretcher. so that the young artist could paint lying down.
"Self-portrait in a velvet dress", 1926
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Self-portrait is the first painting by Kahlo. In the future, she began to develop precisely this direction. "I write myself because I spend a lot of time alone and because I am the subject that I know best."
"Diego in Mind", 1943
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Having recovered a little after the accident, Frida decided to show her work to the famous artist Diego Rivera. He appreciated, saying about Frida "an artist from birth, unusually sensitive and capable of observation." This was the beginning of their romance. At that time, Diego divorced his second wife and became interested in the young, witty and talented artist Frida Kahlo. He was twenty years older than her, ugly, but charming. Frida was passionately in love with him. In 1929 they got married.
"Henry Ford Hospital", 1932
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Frida dreamed of having children, but the injuries sustained as a result of the accident deprived her of the happiness of motherhood. Kahlo wrote this picture after another miscarriage. Blood, a single hospital bed, anguish on her face, and six images linked by arteries are the causes of her suffering.
"Friendly Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico). Me, Diego and Señor Jolotl", 1949
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Frida believed that Diego was her child, who was given to her by the Universe. Sometimes she portrays him in this role.
"Just a few scratches", 1935
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
The picture that Frida wrote after learning about another affair of her husband, Diego Rivera, this time with her younger, beloved sister. Even before Kahlo's wedding, it was known that Diego was not faithful to his first two wives. She sincerely hoped that he would change with her. But these hopes were quickly dispelled by her husband's constant intrigues with various women, about which he did not even hide. But Diego's relationship with her sister was a deafening blow for Frida, comparable to death. The betrayal of two beloved people, which she could not bear and forgive. So this picture appeared, in which cruelty, death, a cold-blooded man with a knife are visible. Birds symbolizing the light and dark sides of love and holding a ribbon that says "Just a few scratches". Frida read this phrase from a newspaper article, which was said in court by a man who stabbed his unfaithful mistress. The artist "blood stained" even the frame and pierced it several times with a knife.
"Frida between curtains", 1937
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Frida presented this self-portrait to Leon Trotsky, signing "with love." In fact, the artist loved only one man - Diego, and intrigues with others (including women - Frida was bisexual) helped to forget the numerous adventures of her unfaithful spouse. Leo Trotsky, who fled from Stalin's persecution to Mexico, together with his wife Natalya, stayed in Frida's blue house. The revolutionary immediately "lost his head" from the extravagant artist and ardent communist Kahlo. "With you, I feel like a seventeen-year-old boy, ”he wrote to her in one of his love letters. And Frida jokingly called him a hard-hitting little Spanish "goat", probably because of his sparse beard. Trotsky's wife put an end to their stormy romance. They quickly left the blue house of the Rivera couple, leaving also a self-portrait gift of Kahlo.
"Two Fridas", 1939
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
The artist painted this canvas after her divorce from her husband. The facial expression is exactly the same - a calm, resolute look. But the heart ... One, the Mexican Frida, has a healthy heart, in the hands of a medallion (Frida before the divorce), and the other, the European Frida, has a torn heart, bleeding. Just surgical scissors clamping on an artery. save from total blood loss. Kahlo wants to emphasize the difference in outfits and internal state. that will no longer be the same, even the sky has lost its clarity and clouds have thickened. “With you I am unhappy, but without you there will be no happiness,” said the artist.
"Rama", 1937
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
1939 is considered the heyday of Frida's career, her paintings are exhibited in Europe, her popularity is growing. André Breton, the founder of surrealism, organized an exhibition entitled "All Mexico", which featured handicrafts and the work of Frida Kahlo.
"Rama" is the first painting by the artist, which was acquired by the Louvre, and, probably, the most original, bright, emphasizing her Mexican origin and the extravagance of her nature.
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.
