The article presents paintings by Frida Kahlo with titles and useless rantings of the author of the article, a brief discussion of the origins of the work of the Mexican artist.
True, Frida did not really succeed in tasting the fruits of her success, like Salvadorich. The work of Frida Kahlo is the fruit of suffering, pain, sadness and failure.
What is the phenomenon of Frida's popularity? Why did the artist, seemingly so ambiguous and difficult to understand, become so popular with?
Painting "My birth"
Paintings by Frida Kahlo. What is the secret of the artist's popularity?
Most of Frida Kahlo's paintings are rather creepy, in anatomy she was also clearly not always strong. Her work can be called more naive than technically strong. Take the same one - she obviously drew better, and her pictures are cuter. It is unlikely that anyone will have a desire to hang a picture of Frida near the crib, unless he is crazy with a search for deep meaning syndrome.
And yet, few of the surrealists (except Salvador Dali) have achieved such fame. And among the women of the surrealists, Frida Kahlo is perhaps the only one.
Friendly embrace of the Universe. In this picture, Frida Kahlo, as if not illusory, hints at the extreme infantilism of her husband Diego. So what's the strength, brother? I think the secret of Frida's success is that despite her obvious naivety and frightening images (but rather thanks), the artist's work makes a very strong impression. The foundation of any creativity is, in fact, the strength of the emotions that it evokes, whether pleasant or not.
When you look at the paintings of the Mexican artist, it is as if you feel all the pain that she endured with your skin. The sincerity of her work is amazing. And some naivete in this case only enhances the impression. The strength of Frida Kahlo is that she never followed the crowd, but simply splashed out on the canvas everything that had accumulated in her heart, without regard to how shocking it would be. It would seem a paradox - to be successful with the crowd without following the lead of the crowd.
Fawn or wounded deer. The work of Frida Kahlo as a reflection of the life of the artist.
I think the other thing is that Frida Kahlo lived a very interesting, albeit unhappy, life. Her life was full of dramas, tragedies, misfortunes, betrayals and sharp emotions. It is not surprising that such a juicy story interested directors. And specifically Julie Taymor, who in 2002 released a good, fit film "Frida" based on life.
After all, that's what we love, right? - look at other people's dramas, lying in soft beds, to tickle your nerves. By the way, if you haven't seen the movie yet, I highly recommend it. The truth is too sad. The author sobbed, as * censorship * even let out a stingy male tear.
In short, a recipe from Frida on how to become a famous artist after death (well, quite a bit before).
- You get into an accident and all your life you suffer from pain in broken bones.
- You want a normal family life and therefore you choose the most inveterate womanizer in your country (Diego Rivera), besides fat and scary.
- All your life you want to have children, but you can’t because of health problems.
- Tell people what you think of them in person. Always. Everyone.
- Drown out your pain with alcohol and tobacco.
- Spill it all out on the canvas.
Okay, it's all stupid black humor. With what persistence this fragile woman endured all the hardships only adds to the tragedy. And fate, as if specifically to test the strength, sent one misfortune after another.
Broken column - everything seems to be clear here. In this painting, Frida depicts her suffering due to her illness. A mixture of different styles of painting in the paintings of Frida Kahlo.
Frida is actually a very deep and interesting artist and still impresses with her inner strength and charisma. Unlike the same Salvador Dali or Magritte, the images of Frida are more direct, which does not detract from their depth.
The paintings of Frida Kahlo clearly show the influence of Mexican muralism or Mexican monumental painting. The brightest and famous representative this direction is, suddenly, the husband of Frida - Diego Rivera. Mexican muralism is such a bizarre mixture of the scoop of social. realism with elements of cubism and symbolism, seasoned with Mexican flavor.
In general, a lot of different things are mixed in the work of the Mexican artist - there is surrealism, and muralism, and symbolism, and in some places elements folk art- all sorts of Mexican flowers and patterns.
In general, it is not surprising, because Frida Kahlo painted from the heart and never really bothered with belonging to any current of painting. For example, Frida never associated herself with surrealism. In fact, Frida can be attributed to the category of artists who "what I see / feel, I sing."
Paintings by Frida Kahlo with titles.
Well, actually, why did you all come here. To see the title of a painting, hover over the image. Well, the WordPress gallery works like that, but I'm too lazy to change something. Pointing and clickable.
Moses. Here is my dress. Sun and life. Broken column. Suicide of Dorothy Hale. Fawn. Still life with a parrot and a flag.
Frida Kahlo de Rivera or Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo Calderon is a Mexican artist best known for her self-portraits.
Biography of the artist
Kahlo Frida ( Kahlo Frida) (1907-1954), Mexican artist and graphic artist, wife, master of surrealism.
Frida Kahlo was born in Mexico City in 1907, the son of a Jewish photographer, originally from Germany. Mother is Spanish born in America. At the age of six, she suffered from polio, and since then her right leg has become shorter and thinner than her left.
At the age of eighteen, on September 17, 1925, Kahlo was in a car accident: a broken iron bar of a tram current collector stuck in her stomach and went out in her groin, crushing her hip bone. The spine was damaged in three places, two hips and a leg were broken in eleven places. Doctors could not vouch for her life.
The painful months of immobile inactivity began. It was at this time that Kahlo asked her father for a brush and paints.
A special stretcher was made for Frida Kahlo, which allowed her to write lying down. Beds attached under the canopy large mirror so that Frida Kahlo can see herself.
She started with self-portraits. “I write myself because I spend a lot of time alone and because I am the subject that I know best.”
In 1929, Frida Kahlo entered the National Institute of Mexico. For a year spent almost in complete immobility, Kahlo became seriously interested in painting. Started walking again, visited art school and in 1928 she joined the Communist Party. Her work was highly appreciated by the already famous communist artist Diego Rivera.
At 22, Frida Kahlo married him. Their family life seethed with passion. They could not always be together, but never apart. Their relationship was passionate, obsessive, and sometimes painful.
The ancient sage said about such relationships: "It is impossible to live neither with you nor without you."
Frida Kahlo's relationship with Trotsky is fanned with a romantic halo. 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.
Most of all in life, Frida Kahlo loved life itself - and this attracted men and women to her like a magnet. Despite the excruciating physical suffering, she could have fun from the heart and go wild. But the damaged spine constantly reminded of itself. From time to time, Frida Kahlo had to go to the hospital, almost constantly wearing special corsets. In 1950, she underwent 7 operations on her spine, she spent 9 months in a hospital bed, after which she could only move in a wheelchair.
In 1952, Frida Kahlo's right leg was amputated to the knee. In 1953, Frida Kahlo's first solo exhibition was held in Mexico City. 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.
Frida Kahlo knew the history of her homeland brilliantly. Many authentic monuments ancient culture, which Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo collected all their lives, is located in the garden of the Blue House (house-museum).
Frida Kahlo died of pneumonia, a week after she celebrated her 47th birthday, on July 13, 1954.
“I am happily waiting to leave and hope never to return. Frida.
Farewell to Frida Kahlo took place in the "Bellas Artes" - the Palace of Fine Arts. On their last journey, Frida, along with Diego Rivera, was seen off by Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas, artists, writers - Siqueiros, Emma Hurtado, Victor Manuel Villaseñor and others famous figures Mexico.
The work of Frida Kahlo
In the works of Frida Kahlo, a very strong influence of folk mexican art, cultures of the pre-Columbian civilizations of America. Her work is full of symbols and fetishes. However, the influence of European painting is also noticeable in it - in early works the enthusiasm of Frida, for example, Botticelli, was clearly manifested. In creativity there is a style of naive art. Frida Kahlo's style of painting was greatly influenced by her husband, artist Diego Rivera.
Experts believe that the 1940s is the era of the artist's heyday, the time of her most interesting and mature works.
The genre of self-portrait prevails in the work of Frida Kahlo. In these works, the artist metaphorically reflected the events of her life (“Henry Ford Hospital”, 1932, private collection, Mexico City; “Self-portrait with a dedication to Leon Trotsky”, 1937, National Museum"Women in Art", Washington; "Two Fridas", 1939, Museum contemporary art, Mexico City; "Marxism heals the sick", 1954, Frida Kahlo House Museum, Mexico City).
Exhibitions
In 2003, an exhibition of Frida Kahlo's works and her photographs was held in Moscow.
The painting "Roots" was exhibited in 2005 in London gallery"Tate", and the personal exhibition of Kahlo in this museum became one of the most successful in the history of the gallery - it was visited by about 370 thousand people.
house museum
The house in Coyoacan was built three years before Frida was born on a small piece of land. The thick walls of the outer façade, the flat roof, one living floor, the layout in which the rooms always remained cool and all opened onto the courtyard - almost a sample of a colonial-style house. It stood only a few blocks from the city's central square. From the outside, the house on the corner of Calle Londres and Calle Allende looked exactly like the others in Coyoacán, an old residential area in the southwest suburbs of Mexico City. For 30 years, the appearance of the house has not changed. But Diego and Frida made it what we know it: a house in the prevailing blue color with elegant high windows, decorated in traditional Indian style, the house is full of passion.
Guarding the entrance to the house are two gigantic Judas, their twenty-foot-tall papier-mâché figures gesturing as if inviting each other to talk.
Inside, Frida's palettes and brushes lie on the worktable as if she had just left them there. By Diego Rivera's bed is a hat, his work robe and huge boots. The large corner bedroom has a glass showcase. Above it is written: "Frida Kahlo was born here on July 7, 1910." The inscription appeared four years after the death of the artist, when her house became a museum. Unfortunately, the inscription is inaccurate. According to Frida's birth certificate, she was born on July 6, 1907. But choosing something more significant than insignificant facts, she decided that she was born not in 1907, but in 1910, the year the Mexican Revolution. Since she was a child during the Revolutionary Decade and lived in the chaos and blood-drenched streets of Mexico City, she decided that she was born with this revolution.
The bright blue and red walls of the courtyard are decorated with another inscription: "Frida and Diego lived in this house from 1929 to 1954."
It reflects the sentimental perfect attitude to marriage, which is again at odds with reality. Before the trip of Diego and Frida to the USA, where they spent 4 years (until 1934), they lived in this house for very little. From 1934-1939 they lived in two houses built especially for them in the residential area of San Angel. Then followed long periods when, preferring to live independently in a studio in San Angel, Diego did not live with Frida at all, not to mention the year when both Rivers parted, divorced and remarried. Both inscriptions embellished reality. Like the museum itself, they are part of the legend of Frida.
Character
Despite a life full of pain and suffering, Frida Kahlo had a lively and liberated extraversion nature, and her daily speech was littered with foul language. Being a tomboy in her youth, she did not lose her ardor in later years. Kahlo smoked heavily, drank alcohol in excess (especially tequila), was openly bisexual, sang obscene songs and told guests of her wild parties equally indecent jokes.
The cost of paintings
In early 2006, Frida's self-portrait "Roots" ("Raices") was valued at Sotheby's at $7 million (original valuation at auction - £4 million). The painting was painted by the artist in oil on sheet metal in 1943 (after her remarriage to Diego Rivera). In the same year, this painting was sold for 5.6 million US dollars, which was a record among Latin American works.
Another self-portrait of 1929, sold in 2000 for 4.9 million dollars (with an initial estimate of 3 - 3.8 million), remains the record for the cost of paintings by Kahlo.
Name commercialization
At the beginning of the 21st century, the Venezuelan entrepreneur Carlos Dorado created the Frida Kahlo Corporation fund, which was granted the right to commercial use of Frida's name by the relatives of the great artist. Within a few years, a line of cosmetics, a brand of tequila, sports shoes, jewelry, ceramics, corsets and underwear, as well as beer with the name of Frida Kahlo.
Bibliography
In art
The bright and extraordinary personality of Frida Kahlo is reflected in the works of literature and cinema:
- In 2002, the film Frida was filmed, dedicated to the artist. The role of Frida Kahlo was played by Salma Hayek.
- In 2005, a non-fiction art film Frida against the backdrop of Frida was shot.
- In 1971, the short film "Frida Kahlo" was released, in 1982 - a documentary, in 2000 - a documentary from the series "Great Artists", in 1976 - "The Life and Death of Frida Kahlo", in 2005 - the documentary "Life and times of Frida Kahlo.
- At the group Alai Oli there is a song "Frida" dedicated to Frida and Diego.
Literature
- The diary of Frida Kahlo: an intimate self-portrait / H.N. Abrams. - N.Y., 1995.
- Teresa del Conde Vida de Frida Kahlo. - Mexico: Departamento Editorial, Secretaría de la Presidencia, 1976.
- Teresa del Conde Frida Kahlo: La Pintora y el Mito. - Barcelona, 2002.
- Drucker M. Frida Kahlo. - Albuquerque, 1995.
- Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Mexican Modernism. (Cat.). - S.F.: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1996.
- Frida Kahlo. (Cat.). - L., 2005.
- Leclezio J.-M. Diego and Frida - M.: Hummingbird, 2006. - ISBN 5-98720-015-6.
- Kettenmann A. Frida Kahlo: Passion and Pain. - M., 2006. - 96 p. - ISBN 5-9561-0191-1.
- Prignitz-Poda H. Frida Kahlo: Life and Work. - N.Y., 2007.
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Pictures of a Mexican artist
my nanny and me
Frida Kahlo de Rivera (Spanish: Frida Kahlo de Rivera), or Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo Calderón (Spanish: Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo Calderón; Coyoacan, Mexico City, July 6, 1907 - July 13, 1954), is a Mexican artist, best known for her self-portraits.
Mexican culture and the art of the peoples of pre-Columbian America had a noticeable influence on her work. The artistic style of Frida Kahlo is sometimes characterized as naïve art or folk art. The founder of surrealism, Andre Breton, ranked her among the surrealists.
All her life she was in poor health - she suffered from polio from the age of six, and also suffered a serious car accident in adolescence, after which she had to undergo numerous operations that affected her whole life. In 1929 she married the painter Diego Rivera and, like him, supported the Communist Party.
Frida Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907 in Coyoacan, a suburb of Mexico City (she later changed her year of birth to 1910, the year of the Mexican Revolution). Her father was photographer Guillermo Kahlo, originally from Germany. According to the widely circulated version, based on Frida's claims, he was Jewish origin, however, according to later research, he came from a German Lutheran family, whose roots can be traced back to the 16th century. Frida's mother, Matilda Calderon, was a Mexican with Indian roots. Frida Kahlo was the third child in the family. At the age of 6, she suffered from polio, after the illness, lameness remained for life, and her right leg became thinner than her left (which Kahlo hid all her life under long skirts). So early experience struggle for the right to a full life tempered the character of Frida.
Frida was engaged in boxing and other sports. At the age of 15, she entered the "Preparatory" (National preparatory school), one of best schools Mexico to study medicine. Of the 2,000 students in this school, there were only 35 women. Frida immediately earned credibility by creating a closed group "Kachuchas" with eight other students. Her behavior was often called outrageous.
In the Preparatory, her first meeting took place with her future husband, the famous Mexican artist Diego Rivera, who from 1921 to 1923 worked at the Preparatory School on the painting "Creation".
At the age of eighteen, on September 17, 1925, Frida had a severe accident. The bus she was on collided with a tram. Frida received serious injuries: a triple fracture of the spine (in the lumbar region), a fracture of the collarbone, broken ribs, a triple fracture of the pelvis, eleven fractures of the bones of the right leg, a crushed and dislocated right foot, and a dislocated shoulder. In addition, her stomach and uterus were pierced with metal railings. She was bedridden for a year, and health problems remained for life. Subsequently, Frida had to undergo several dozen operations, not leaving hospitals for months.
It was after the tragedy that she first asked her father for brushes 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 she could see herself. The first picture was a self-portrait, which forever determined the main direction of creativity: “I paint myself because I spend a lot of time alone and because I am the topic that I know best.”
In 1928 she joined the Mexican Communist Party. In 1929, Diego Rivera married Frida. She was 22, he was 43. The spouses were brought together not only by art, but also by common political convictions - communist. Their stormy life together has become a legend. Many years later, Frida said: “There were two accidents in my life: one was when the bus crashed into a tram, the other was Diego.” In the 1930s, Frida lived for some time in the United States, where her husband worked. It's forced long stay abroad, in a developed industrial country, made her feel national differences more acutely.
This is part of a Wikipedia article used under the CC-BY-SA license. Full text of the article here →
Text: Maria Mikhantyeva
A retrospective of Frida Kahlo is taking place in St. Petersburg until the end of April- the great Mexican artist, who became the soul and heart of female painting worldwide. It is customary to tell about Frida's life through the story of overcoming physical pain, however, as is usually the case, this is only one aspect of a complex and multifaceted path. Frida Kahlo was not just the wife of the recognized painter Diego Rivera or a symbol of spiritual and physical strength- all her life the artist wrote, starting from her own internal contradictions, a complex relationship with independence and love, talking about who she knew best - herself.
The biography of Frida Kahlo is more or less known to everyone who watched the film Julie Taymor with Salma Hayek: carefree childhood and youth, terrible accident, an almost accidental passion for painting, acquaintance with the artist Diego Rivera, marriage and the eternal status of "everything is complicated." Physical pain, mental pain, self-portraits, abortions and miscarriages, communism, romance novels, worldwide fame, slow fading and long-awaited death: “I hope that the departure will be successful and I will not return again,” the sleeping Frida flies into eternity on the bed.
Whether the departure itself was successful, we do not know, but for the first twenty years after it, it seemed that Frida's wish was fulfilled: she was forgotten everywhere except her native Mexico, where a house-museum was opened almost immediately. In the late 1970s, in the wake of interest in women's art and neo-Mexicanism, her work began to occasionally appear in exhibitions. Nevertheless, in 1981, in The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Art, she was given only one line: “Kahlo, Frida. See Rivera, Diego Maria.
“There were two accidents in my life: one was when the bus crashed into a tram, the other was Diego,” Frida said. The first accident made her start painting, the second made her an artist. The first all my life responded with physical pain, the second caused mental pain. These two experiences subsequently became the main themes of her paintings. If there really was a car accident fatal accident(Frida was supposed to take another bus, but got off halfway to look for her forgotten umbrella), then a difficult relationship (after all, Diego Rivera was not the only one) was inevitable due to the contradictory nature of her, in which strength and independence were combined with sacrifice and obsession.
Frida and Diego Rivera, 1931
I had to learn to be strong as a child: first helping my father survive epileptic attacks, and then coping with the consequences of polio. Frida played football and boxing; at school, she was a member of a gang of "kachuchas" - hooligans and intellectuals. When the leadership educational institution invited Rivera, then already a recognized master, to do the wall painting, she rubbed soap on the steps of the stairs to see how this man with the face of a toad and the physique of an elephant would slip. She considered girls' companies banal, preferred to be friends with boys and met with the most popular and smart of them, who also studied a few classes older.
But having fallen in love, Frida seemed to lose her mind, which she so appreciated in people. She could literally pursue the object of her passion, bombarding with letters, seducing and manipulating, all in order to then play the role of a faithful companion. That was her first marriage to Diego Rivera. They both cheated, diverged and converged again, but, according to the recollections of friends, Frida often conceded, trying to maintain a relationship. “She treated him like a beloved dog,” one of her friends recalled. - He is with her - as with a favorite thing. Even in the "wedding" portrait of Frida and Diego Rivera, only one of the two artists is depicted with professional attributes, palette and brushes - and this is not Frida.
While Diego painted frescoes for days on end, spending the night in the scaffolding, she carried lunch baskets for him, took care of the bills, saved on her much-needed medical procedures (Diego spent big money on his collection of pre-Columbian statues), listened carefully and accompanied at exhibitions. Under the influence of her husband, her paintings also changed: if Frida wrote the very first portraits, imitating Renaissance artists from art albums, then thanks to Diego, the national traditions of Mexico glorified by the revolution penetrated into them: the naivety of the retablo, Indian motifs and the aesthetics of Mexican Catholicism with its theatricalization of suffering, combining the image of bleeding wounds with the splendor of flowers, lace and ribbons.
"Alejandro Gomez Arias", 1928
To please her husband, she even changed her jeans and leather jackets for puffy skirts and became a "Tehuana". This image was completely devoid of any authenticity, since Frida combined clothes and accessories from different social groups and eras, she could wear an Indian skirt with a Creole blouse and earrings by Picasso. In the end, her ingenuity turned this masquerade into separate view Arts: Starting to dress for her husband, she continued to create unique looks for her own pleasure. In her diary, Frida noted that the costume is also a self-portrait; her dresses have become characters in paintings, and now they accompany them at exhibitions. If the paintings were a reflection of the inner storm, then the costumes became her armor. It is no coincidence that a year after the divorce, “Self-portrait with cropped hair” appeared, on which the place of skirts and ribbons was taken by a men's suit - in a similar Frida somehow posed for family portrait long before meeting Diego.
The first serious attempt to get out of the influence of her husband was the decision to give birth. Natural childbirth was impossible, but there was hope for C-section. Frida thrashed about. On the one hand, she passionately desired to continue the race, to stretch further that red ribbon, which she would later depict in the painting “My grandparents, my parents and me”, to get “little Diego” at her disposal. On the other hand, Frida understood that the birth of a child would tie her to the house, interfere with work and distance her from Rivera, who was categorically against children. In the first letters to a family friend, Dr. Leo Eloisser, the pregnant Frida asks which option will cause less harm to her health, but, without waiting for an answer, she herself decides to keep the pregnancy and no longer retreats. Paradoxically, the choice that is usually imposed on a woman "by default" in the case of Frida becomes a rebellion against her husband's guardianship.
Unfortunately, the pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. Instead of "little Diego", Henry Ford's Hospital was born - one of the saddest works, which began a series of "bloody" paintings. Perhaps, this was the first case in the history of art when the artist, with the utmost, almost physiological honesty, spoke about women's pain, so much so that the legs gave way to men. Four years later, the organizer of her Paris exhibition, Pierre Collet, did not even immediately dare to exhibit these paintings, considering them too shocking.
Finally, that part of a woman's life, which has always been shamefacedly hidden from prying eyes, was revealed
in a work of art
Misfortune haunted Frida: after the death of her child, she survived the death of her mother, and one can only guess what a blow it was for her. another novel Diego, this time with her younger sister. She, nevertheless, blamed herself and was ready to forgive, if only not to become a "hysterical" - her thoughts on this matter are painfully similar to the age-old thesis that "". But in the case of Frida, humility and the ability to endure went hand in hand with black humor and irony.
Feeling her secondary importance, the insignificance of her feelings compared to men's, she brought this experience to the point of absurdity in the film "A Few Little Pricks". “I just poked her a few times,” a man who stabbed his girlfriend said at the trial. Having learned about this story from the newspapers, Frida wrote a work full of sarcasm, literally covered in blood (spots of red paint “splashed out” even on the frame). Above the bloody body of a woman stands a deadpan killer (his hat is a hint of Diego), and on top, like a mockery, the name hovers, written on a ribbon held by doves, so similar to a wedding decoration.
Among Rivera's admirers there is an opinion that Frida's paintings are "salon paintings". Perhaps, at first, Frida herself would have agreed with this. She has always been critical of own creativity, did not seek to make friends with gallery owners and dealers, and when someone bought her paintings, she often complained that the money could be spent more profitably. There was some coquetry in this, but, frankly, it's hard to feel confident when your husband is a recognized artist who works around the clock, and you are a self-taught, with difficulty finding time for painting between chores around the house and medical operations. “The works of the aspiring artist are definitely significant and threaten even her famous husband, crowned with laurels,” was written in a press release for Frida’s first New York exhibition (1938); "little Frida" - that's what the author of the publication in TIME called her. By that time, the “beginner” “baby” had been writing for nine years.
"Roots", 1943
But the lack of high expectations gave complete freedom. “I write myself because I spend a lot of time alone and because I am the topic that I know best,” Frida said, and in addressing this “topic” there was not only subjectivity, but also subjectivity. The women who posed for Diego turned into nameless allegories in his frescoes; Frida has always been the main character. This position was strengthened by doubling the portraits: she often painted herself simultaneously in different images and hypostases. The large canvas "Two Fridas" was created during the divorce proceedings; on it, Frida wrote herself "beloved" (on the right, in a Tehuan costume) and "unloved" (in a Victorian dress, bleeding), as if declaring that now she is her own "second half". In the painting “My Birth”, created shortly after her first miscarriage, she depicts herself as a newborn, but apparently also associates with the figure of a mother, whose face is hidden.
The New York exhibition mentioned above helped Frida become freer. For the first time, she felt her independence: she went to New York alone, made acquaintances, received commissions for portraits and started novels, not because her husband was too busy, but because she liked it so much. The exhibition was received generally favorably. Of course, there were critics who said that Frida's paintings were too "gynecological", but it was rather a compliment: finally, that part of a woman's life, which the theorists of "female destiny" had been discussing for centuries, but which had always been shamefacedly hidden from prying eyes, was shown in a work of art.
The New York exhibition was followed by the Paris one, arranged with the direct participation of Andre Breton, who considered Frida a prominent surrealist. She agreed to the exhibition, but carefully denied surrealism. There are many symbols on Frida's canvases, but no hints: everything is obvious, like an illustration from an anatomical atlas, and at the same time flavored with excellent humor. The dreaminess and decadence inherent in the surrealists annoyed her, their nightmares and Freudian projections seemed childish compared to what she had experienced in reality: “Since [the accident] I have been obsessed with the idea of depicting things as my eyes see them, and nothing more". “She has no illusions,” Rivera agreed.
roots, stems and fruits, and in diary entries refrain "Diego is my child".
It became impossible for her husband to be a mother after a series of operations on the spine and amputations: first a pair of fingers on the right foot, then the entire lower leg. Frida habitually endured pain, but was afraid of losing her mobility. Nevertheless, she was brave: going to the operation, she put on one of the best dresses, and for the prosthesis she ordered a red leather boot with embroidery. Despite serious condition, addiction to narcotic painkillers and mood swings, was preparing for the 25th anniversary of her first wedding and even persuaded Diego to take her to a communist demonstration. Continuing to work from last strength, at some point thought about how to make her paintings more politicized, which seemed unthinkable after so many years spent depicting personal experiences. Perhaps if Frida had survived the illness, we would have learned it from a new, unexpected side. But on July 13, 1954, pneumonia caught at that very demonstration ended the life of the artist.
“For twelve years of work, everything was excluded that did not come from the internal lyrical motivation that forced me to write,” Frida explained in an application for a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation in 1940, “Because my subjects have always been my own feelings, the state of my mind and responses to what life put into me, I often embodied all this in the image of myself, which was the most sincere and real, so I could express everything that happens in me and in the outside world.
"My birth", 1932
Attempts to tell about this outstanding 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 films and documentaries. 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 such attempt, illustrated quite rare photos 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" murals and freedom-loving views, at the head of the trade union column revolutionary artists, sculptures and graphics before 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 future life- never to be separated. 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 bloodied 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. 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 men's suit. We are used to seeing Frida in Mexican blouses and colorful skirts, but she loved to wear and men's clothing. 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
After the death of the artist, more than 800 photographs remained, and some of Frida are depicted naked! She really liked to pose naked, and indeed to be photographed, the daughter of a photographer. Below are photos of naked Frida:
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 sits, he stands (probably in every family album there are similar pictures, only on this one - a woman who survived a terrible car accident. But don't think 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. The first one happened 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.
ABOUT love affair Frida and the Catalan artist José Bartley know a little more:
“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 civil war in Spain.
Frida Kahlo and Bartoli met when she was recovering from another spinal surgery. Returning to Mexico, she left the Bartoli, but they 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 be the main lots auction house Doyle New York. 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.
Although 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 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 nude female body cut 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. 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 financial affairs they will conduct separately. Together, they will only pay for household expenses. That's so strange marriage contract. But Diego was so happy to get his Frida back that he willingly signed this document.
