The Woman Who Created Groundbreaking Art Out Of Her Pain

 Frida Kahlo was an artist in the 19th century who addressed social issues, sexuality identity, political activism and nonconformity. She was born July 6th, 1907 in Mexico city, Coyoacan. At age six she contracted polio, a disease that was very common in children back then. Polio caused her to be bedridden for nine months, and left her with a permanent limp, and a right leg that was thinner and shorter than her left.

In school she was known to be very outspoken and brave. Her dad was her biggest supporter, pushing her to play many different sports. This was notable because at the time it was very unusual for girls to play sports.

Around this time she saw a man painting a mural in her school, his name was Diego Rivera. Though he was 20 years older than her at the time, she told a friend that she was going to marry him. 

When she was 18, Frida was involved in a tragic bus accident, a handrail impaled her hip. her spine and pelvis were fractured, in total she had 11 fractures in her leg, and her uterus and abdomen were punctured by the handrail. The bus accident left her in a full body cast for three months. 

Her parents bought and built her an easel she could use in bed, along with a mirror so she could paint herself. This time in her life was full of pain and loneliness.

 “The loneliness led her to start expressing in a way that she wasn’t doing before,” says performer Vanessa Severo, creator of the play Frida… A Self Portrait. “She was telling her story by painting it.”  After the accident, we see in her art a theme of pain and resilience. Her art, especially in the 19th century, was groundbreaking, and gained attention from the man from nine years earlier, Diego Rivera.  

In 1928 Diego Rivera, the man who painted the mural for her school, discovered her art and was very impressed. He had been reintroduced to her by a mutual friend, and they quickly became each other’s muses. 

despite Frida’s mothers disapproval, she and Diego got married in 1929. Their marriage was not average, often toxic, unbound, and chaotic. At the wedding Frida’s mother compares them to the dove and the elephant, due to the fact Diego was three times her weight, and was almost a foot taller. Frida Kahlo would later say:

“There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the trolley, and the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst.”

It is confirmed that between 1931 and 1932 that she had at least two miscarriages, and speculation that there could have been up to six. The bus crash she was involved in when she was 18 had caused many issues, one of them being that she was not able to have children. These miscarriages destroyed her psychologically and physically, and she would create two paintings, showing the distress and pain she endured due to the fact she could not have children. 

Frida and Diego were known to have many affairs, Frida had affairs with women and men, she was openly bisexual, which was frowned upon at the time. Diego at one point even had an affair with Frida’s sister. Upon finding out about the affair in 1935 she moved out of the house that she and Diego lived in and moved into her own apartment. Diego and Frida got divorced in 1939, but would get remarried the following year. 

Frida often traveled with Diego as he painted murals around the US. When she traveled to Paris for an exhibition in 1939 she met Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, and André Breton who were all also famous artists at the time. They would also help her have her first solo exhibition in 1938 in New york. This event was notable due to her health at the time, she was driven there by an ambulance, and was bedridden through the whole event, showing her resilience and bravery.

Her painting, The Broken Column published in 1944 was made shortly after she went through spinal surgery. The painting expressed her ongoing struggles with the pain she dealt with due to the bus accident in 1925. The painting also portrays her decreasing health. 

In 1950 she got gangrene in her right foot and was bedridden for 9 months, and eventually she had to get part of her leg amputated. Sadly, at age 46, she died on July 13 1954. Over the course of her life she painted 143 paintings, underwent 32 surgeries, and survived multiple life threatening surgeries. Despite the hardships she faced she fought for gender rights, social justice, indigenous rights, and other social issues.