a wound on her leg, a broken heart, herself dead, blood on sheets... Her self-portraits grossly overemphasised her shortcomings, hairs on her face and her fused eyebrows. Her pictures cannot be classi ed in any known artistic direction. Her works cannot be analysed without familiarity with her life. She painted to live and lived to paint. How- ever, collectively, the majority of her paint- ings represent Mexican folk art, mytholo- gy, religion, and pre-Columbian primitive art. This represents a previously unseen fu- sion. She was good enough to be able to be di erent. At an exhibition in Paris she met the then crème de la crème of the artworld , while her paintings were admired by Joan Miró, Kandinsky and Duchamp, and Picas- so even gifted her turtleshell earrings that she often wore. De ance became her life- style. She didn’t allow her broken body to hamper her, nor did she allow Diego to break her. In hospital, wearing make-up and with painted nails, she painted a cor- set, the armour that held her body. Over the course of three years she changed 28 corsets made of plaster, plastic, iron and leather. She transferred all of her misery to canvas, out of despair she entered into relationships with men and women. She spent hours combing her hair and dress- ing. She made a brand of her look. Beau- tiful, fun and witty, in a completely surreal life and environment. She created a thea- tre scene around herself. She was stubborn to the end. She died in the 47 th year of her life, just ten days af- ter her four-hour participation in a street protest that she attended despite being banned from doing so by her doctor. She achieved recognition and was valued dur- ing her own lifetime, which is a privilege that few great artists could boast of hav- ing achieved.
Nakon njene smrti Dijego Rivera je
porodičnu kuću u Meksiko Sitiju pretvorio u muzej Following her death, Diego Rivera converted the family house in Mexico City into a museum
T he story of Frida Kahlo, at least the one that most people know, starts with the almost fatal crash of a bus that broke her body and marked the beginning of a life of challenges. Her re- al story, however, began much earlier. Born in an impoverished suburb of Mexico City in the July of 1907, in her early childhood she was left lame after su ering childhood paralysis, ensuring she grew up with pains and became di erent. Her shorter leg per- haps meant that she couldn’t run, but she stile rode bicycles, swam and swung from trees. Energetic and rebellious, in second- ary school she wore trousers and cut her hair short. With her strength and bravery she earned her father’s respect and sup- port, becoming his only educated child. And then she was involved in a serious tra c accident, the money for her schooling was spent on treatment, and the 19-year- old Frida devoted herself to the only thing she’d learned during her months of lying immobile – painting. Over the following three decades, she produced a relatively small but consistent collection of paintings. Her opus comprises 143 paintings, 55 of which are self-portraits. Through person- al examinations of herself and her identi- ty, she consistently, again and again, paint- ed what she felt: her constant struggle with physical pain.
As if she hadn’t already endured enough su ering and sacri ce, Diego Ri- vera, a then living legend of the Mexican Renaissance, entered her life. Though their relationship was turbulent and emotionally draining, she remained with him until the end of her life. Stripping down to the deep- est intimacy, through her canvases we see physical and emotional pain expressed in a completely di erent way than that of her contemporaries, Mexican muralists. Frida’s own appearance became as fas- cinating as her canvases. She formed a strik- ing and powerful look for herself, based on folk costumes and oversized jewellery that became her uniform. She moved away from her trousers and masculine style of dressing and opted courageously for dresses worn by Tijuana peasants. She plaited her hair into braids wrapped around her head and remained faithful to that same hairstyle for the rest of her life. Flowers and ribbons in her hair, as well as red lipstick, became her trademark. She gained recognition for her work at the very beginning of her career from French poet and co-founder of Surreal- ism André Breton. However, regardless of how surreal her works seemed, she never painted dreams. She painted life. Her own. She mercilessly brought to life on canvas everything she’d endured - a broken spine,
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