Hello, my name is Paul Priestley. Welcome to Artist in School, the home of art history
for young people and interested amateurs. Today we are going to look at the great Mexican
artist, Frida Kahlo, whose paintings explore issues that might not be suitable for younger
children. But that decision rest with you. Nevertheless, this remarkable artist is well
worth investigating, so come on, let’s make a start.
Frida Kahlo Calderon was born on the 6th of July 1907, in Coyoacan, a suburb of Mexico
City. She was the third daughter of Matilda and Wilhelm Kahlo, who was a German immigrant.
Frida’s mother was kind and intelligent, but Frida also described her as calculating,
cruel and fanatically religious. In contrast, in her diary, she described her father, who
was an amateur artist, as warm, affectionate and sympathetic to her problems.
In 1913, at the age of six, Frida contracted polio, which left her with a slightly crooked
right foot. As a result, school children called her ‘Peg Leg Frida’. So, it was not surprising
that she took to wearing trousers and very long skirts.
At the age of 15 Frida Kahlo was one of 35 girls to join the first intake of girls at
the 2000 strong National Preparatory School in Mexico City. Frida specialised in natural
sciences because she wanted to be a doctor. She was an avid reader, a strong supporter
of social justice and became seriously committed to Mexican culture and politics. It was at
the National Preparatory School that she first saw the artist Diego Rivera, who she often
teased as he was painting the fresco ‘The Creation’ in the Simon Bolívar Amphitheatre
within the school. On the 17th of September 1925 she was seriously
injured in a collision between a tram and the bus she was traveling home from school
on. She spent a month in the Red Cross Hospital and during the long months of convalescence
that followed, she began to paint. “I felt I still had enough energy to do something
other than studying to become a doctor without giving it any particular thought, I started
painting”. A canopy was attached to Frida’s bed with
a mirror covering its entire underside, so she could see herself and be her own model.
This was the start of the many self-portraits that dominate Frida Kahlo’s work. “I paint
myself because I’m so often alone and because I am the subject I know best.” As an artist,
she was virtually self-taught, but she did have drawing lessons from the commercial printmaker
Fernando Fernandez, whose studio happened to be close to her school.
Frida Kahlo met Diego Rivera again around 1927. He was overwhelmed by her determination
and passion and impressed by her work. He encouraged her to pursue a career as an artist
and soon became a frequent visitor to Frida Kahlo’s home. They fell in love and in his
mural, ‘The Ballad of the Revolution,’ he painted Frida wearing a red blouse with
a star on the breast, distributing weapons for the revolutionary struggle. Frida had
joined the Young Communist League in 1927 and became a member of the Mexican Communist
Party in 1928. On the 21st of August 1929, Frida Kahlo and
Diego Rivera were married, he was 42 and she was 22. Her parents were very much against
the marriage, often referring to the couple as the ‘Elephant and the Dove’. Before
her marriage Frida had often worn men’s clothes as a means of establishing her independence,
but when with Diego, she took to wearing the richly decorative dress of the women from
Teheuantepec region. This became her preferred clothing, partly because the floor length
skirts hid her somewhat shorter right leg. In 1930 Diego was offered a commission to
paint a mural in the United States and in November of that year the couple moved to
San Francisco. The United States was a powerful magnet for Mexican mural painters because
under the Presidency of Plutarco Elias Calles, the funding for murals had virtually dried
up, and political opponents, especially communists, had been imprisoned. Later that year Frida
Kahlo’s first pregnancy was terminated because of problems with her pelvis, resulting from
the injury sustained in the traffic accident. The pain and the deformity of her right leg
also became more problematic and led to the meeting with Dr Leo Eloesser, who would become
her most trusted medical adviser. 1932 saw Frida and Diego move to Detroit,
but in July of that year, Frida’s second pregnancy ended in miscarriage. She recorded
the traumatic event in this painting called ‘Henry Ford Hospital.’
Later that year the couple moved to New York, where Diego began a mural at the Rockefeller
Centre. But problems arose. Frida had had enough of America and Americans and wanted
to return to Mexico, but Diego was fascinated by the country and wanted to stay. In reaction
to this conflict, Frida began work on ‘My Dress Hangs There’ which she completed later
in Mexico. Her view of America can be seen in the symbolism of social decay and human
values depicted in the picture. Ironically, Diego’s contract in New York was cancelled
early, because he had given a figure of a worker’s leader in the mural, the face of
Lenin. Unfortunately, in 1934 Frida’s third pregnancy
was terminated and her right foot was operated on and several toes were removed. Early the
following year Frida left home after discovering Diego’s affair with her younger sister,
Christina. For several months Frida lived in an apartment in the centre of Mexico.
But in 1936, after a reconciliation with Diego, Frida moved back into the family home and
had yet another operation on her foot. Later that year, the Spanish Civil War broke out
and she together with other sympathisers, founded a Solidarity Committee in aid of the
Spanish Republicans. Mexico granted political asylum in 1937 to
Leon Trotsky, the Russian revolutionary. When Leon Trotsky and his family arrived in Mexico
Frida met them and placed the Blue House in Coyoacan, the Kahlo family home, at their
disposal. There followed a brief affair between Frida and Leon and after the relationship
ended, she gave him this painting. 1938 saw Frida Kahlo’s first exhibition,
held in Julian Levy’s Gallery in New York. It was a great success. Frida’s work was
so personal that she found it difficult to understand others could appreciate her work.
However, when the American actor Edward G Robinson purchased four of her paintings for
$200 each, she saw an opportunity. “This way I am going to be able to be free. I’ll
be able to travel and do what I want without asking Diego for money”.
In 1939, Frida and Diego were divorced. Subsequently, Frida suffered long periods of loneliness
and threw herself into her work because she wanted no financial support from Diego. “I
will never accept money from any man till I die”. She cut her hair very short, destroying,
she believed, the symbol of feminine beauty and sensuality Diego so admired. She also
gave up wearing long skirts and instead wore men’s suits.
To express her very individual ideas and feelings Frida Kahlo developed her own pictorial language.
You’ll notice on Frida’s necklace a dead hummingbird, the shape of its wings echoes
the shape of her own eye brows. In Mexican culture the bird is a symbol of good luck,
perhaps it reflects Frida Kahlo’s hope for a better life after her divorce. But there’s
a black cat on her shoulder, a symbol of bad luck and death. Is she doubting her recovery?
On Frida’s right shoulder there’s, a monkey, a gift from Diego Rivera but it can also be
a symbol of the devil. Is the monkey tightening the necklace around her neck causing her more
pain? At the top of the painting are butterflies, maybe their metamorphosis alludes to the hope
of her life transforming. Frida travelled to San Francisco in 1940 for
treatment from Dr. Eloesser for severe back pain and in December of that year Frida and
Diego were married for a second time. ‘Because our separation was having aa bad effect on
both of us’. Frida and Diego moved into the Blue House
in Coyoacan in 1941 after Frida’s father, Wilhelm died. Although Diego used a house
in San Angel as his studio. Following the International Exhibition of Surrealism, held
the previous year in Mexico City, Frida’s reputation as an artist began to grow.
In 1943, she accepted a professorship at La Esmeralda School of Art in Mexico City. But
instead of working from plaster models and copying European ideas, she sent her students
out into the streets, looking for inspiration from reality of Mexican life. But unfortunately,
Frida’s health was failing and after a few months she was forced to hold her classes
at home. In 1945 saw Frida receive a national prize
from the Ministry of Public Education for her complex painting ‘Moses’. Painted
in 1945 the sun is presented as "the centre of all religions." The top part of the painting
contains gods; the middle section is full of "heroes" like Alexander the Great, Martin
Luther, Napoleon, Karl Marks and, very strangely, Hitler. The people fill the bottom of the
painting together with scenes relating to the process of evolution. In the middle of
the painting is the infant Moses, whose face resembles Diego Rivera with the third eye
of wisdom. By 1946 Frida’s paintings were appearing
in the majority of group exhibitions held in Mexico. But later that year, she went to
New York for an operation to strengthen her spine. After the operation she completed this
self-portrait for her patron, the engineer, Eduardo Safa. “I have almost finished your
first painting, which of course is nothing but the result of the damned operation. I
am sitting on the edge of an abyss - with my leather corset in one hand.”
Frida re-joined the Mexican Communist Party in 1948, but two years later, in 1950, had
to have a total of 7 operations on her spine and spent 9 months in the ABC hospital in
Mexico City. It would not be until November 1950 that she started painting for around
3 hours a day, using a special easel mounted on her bed. Although she was still intimate
with Diego, her closest relationships from now on seem to be almost exclusively with
women. After her discharge from hospital in 1951,
Frida was mostly confined to a wheelchair. She was in severe pain and took pain killers
regularly. Up to this point her paintings had been executed with extreme technical precision.
But the increasingly strong medication began to affect the steadiness of her hand, resulting
in her brushwork becoming much looser, cruder and almost careless.
But in 1953 Lola Bravo organized Frida Kahlo’s first solo exhibition in Mexico in her gallery
in Mexico City. Frida was in very poor health but insisted on attending the opening night.
She had her bed sent to the gallery and she arrived by ambulance. But later that year,
to relieve severe pain, Frida’s right leg was amputated below the knee, which sent her
into a deep depression. However, it did not stop her painting. Her work became blatantly
propagandist, more so than in previous years, revealing an almost religious faith in Communism.
“My painting is not revolutionary, so why should I kid myself that I am a militant”.
Frida Kahlo’s end was approaching and early in 1954, she caught pneumonia. But on 2nd
July 1954 while convalescing and against the advice of her doctors, she took part in the
demonstration against the overthrow by the CIA of the government of Guatemalan President
Jacobo Arbenz. “They amputated my leg 6 months ago, they have given me centuries of
torture and at moments I have lost my reason. I keep on wanting to kill myself. Diego is
the one who holds me back, because of my vanity in thinking that he would miss me”.
Frida Kahlo was in extreme pain on night of the 12th of July 1954 and died the following
morning. The very last entry in her diary reads. “I hope the exit is joyful. And I
hope never to come back.” Her nurse stated that Frida was prescribed a maximum of 7 pain
killers, but had taken 11. No autopsy was performed and that afternoon her coffin was
placed in the entrance hall of the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City attended by a
guard of honour. But like so many of her public appearances this very last one also caused
a stir. With Diego Rivera’s permission, some of her political friends covered her
coffin with a red flag emblazoned with a hammer and sickle and framed by a white star. This
provoked a public outcry, but the guard of honour was maintained for a day and a night
and by the afternoon of the 14th of July more than 600 people had paid their respects.
Frida Kahlo’s body was carried through the town to the crematorium. And after several
speeches, she was cremated. Her ashes were placed in a pre-Columbian vase which now resides
in the Blue House. Four year later, in accordance with the wishes
of Diego Rivera who died in 1957, Frida Kahlo’s home, the Blue House, was bequeathed to the
Mexican nation and opened as a museum. Frida Kahlo was a most remarkable woman whose
lust for life was focused on the idea of being very honest, with and about herself. Her artistic
achievement is perhaps best summed by the words of Diego Rivera.
“She’s the first woman in the history of art to treat, with absolute uncompromising
honesty, one might even say with impassive cruelty, those general and specific themes,
which exclusively affect women.” Thank you for watching, I hope you’ve enjoyed
the video and learnt lots about the amazing artist Frida Kahlo. If you interested in the
lives of other great artists, then please check out my YouTube channel. And if you are
interested in supporting the production of these videos, then check out my Patreon channel
Thanks for watching and I’ll look forward to seeing you my next video. Goodbye.