Frida Kahlo's Art

Frida Kahlo's art reflects a compelling stoicism with respect to the suffering with which her life was filled. She was born in 1907, died in 1954, and during her life she experienced an incredible array of serious health problems, including polio at the age of six, which left her right leg weakened permanently; a streetcar accident at the age of eighteen which left her seriously injured; severe internal bleeding and re-hospitalization at the age of twenty-five; spinal surgery at the age of 39; hospitalization four years later for recurring spinal problems; the amputation of her right leg because of gangrene three years later; bronchial pneumonia the same year (1954), the year she died. These are only the most extreme physical problems; she suffered on a daily basis from various chronic pains associated with her accidents and diseases. In addition to her physical problems, Kahlo suffered emotionally and psychologically from her life-long turbulent relationship with famed muralist Diego Rivera, who abused her in a number of ways, including having an affair with Kahlo's sister.

As might be expected, these problems and associated pains in Kahlo's life found their way into her art. The bulk of her paintings are self-portraits, and the expression on those portraits is uniformly stoic, self-contained, powerful with a kind of transcendent resignation.

While we do know that many of the major features of Kahlo's life --- especially her physical problems and her troubled relati

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a value that requires no biographical corroboration" (Zamora, 1990, p. 9). Kahlo's tendency to flout convention in life (her sexuality, her radical left-wing politics) was reflected in the same tendency in her art. She disdained the popular movements of art, choosing instead to create her own vision. And that vision focused primarily on her own image. This self-fascination began, appropriately enough, during a bed-bound period of convalescence after her streetcar accident: "While confined to bed, Frida began to paint, using a small lap easel . . . Overhead, in the canopy of her bed, she positioned a mirror so she could use her reflection as a subject, an arrangement signaling the beginning of her focus on selfportraits" (Zamora, 1990, p. 27). Her earlier works --- "Frida in Coyoacan" (1927), "Self-Portrait Wearing a Velvet Dress" (1926), "The Bus" (1929), "Portrait of Alicia Galant" (1927), "Portrait of Miguel N. Lira" (1927), and other portraits --- show the same clarity of vision and simplicity of presentation which would mark later work, but those earlier efforts do not possess the same compelling power of the later pieces. In 1931 and 1932, she began more experimental works which began to have an intensity and a risk

Category: Arts - F