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Frida Kahlo
(1907 - 1954)
Frida Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907, the third of four daughters of Wilhelm Kahlo, a German Jew of Hungarian descent, and Matilde Calderon de Kahlo, a mestizo Mexican. The family lived in a house that the parents had built themselves in 1904, in Coyoacan, a suburb of Mexico City.
Frida¡¯s maternal grandfather had been a photographer and had taught her father the craft. Wilhelm, who changed his name to Guillermo when he became a Mexican citizen, set himself up in business and rose to relative prosperity, receiving commissions from the Mexican government. However, the Mexican Revolution, which started in 1910 and would continue for several decades, brought an end to this work, and as a result, Kahlo¡¯s childhood was spent in relative poverty, forcing her to start working at an early age.
In 1913, at the age of 6, Frida contracted polio, which left her right foot crippled and earned her the cruel nickname ¡°Peg-leg Frida.¡± Kahlo was very sensitive about this deformity, and this would lead her to wear, at first, trousers and, later, long exotic skirts that would become one of her trademarks.
Unlike many artists, Frida did not start painting at an early age. Although her father dabbled in painting as a hobby, his daughter was not particularly interested in art as a career and did not pursue it seriously.
Frida Kahlo received her primary education at the Colegio Aleman, Mexico City's German school. In 1922, she graduated and became a student at the Escuela Nacional Prepatoria (National Preparatory School), rated the best preparatory college in Mexico. Kahlo was one among only 35 female students out of a total of some 2,000. She studied the natural sciences, with the eventual aim of becoming a medical doctor.
It was at the Escuela that she first became acquainted with the ideas of socialism and national-socialism. Kahlo joined a group called the "Cachuchas", so named after the caps they wore. Several members of the group would later become prominent cultural and political figures.
The event that would transform her life and launch her artistic career took place in the September of 1925. Returning home from school with her boyfriend, Alejandro Gomez Arias, the pair was caught in a terrible accident. The bus that they were riding on collided with a tram, killing several people. Kahlo suffered severe injuries and was confined to bed for many months.
It was during this period that she took up the paintbrush, to distract herself from the pain and boredom of her condition. Her parents provided her with a mirror, so that she could serve as her own model, and this was how Kahlo began painting the self-portraits that would dominate her repertoire.
Some of her early works include the Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress (1926), Portrait of Miguel N..... |
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