Frida kahlo is the most famous female artist in history. She deviated from the traditional
portrayal of female beauty in art, and instead chose to paint raw and honest experiences.
A near-fatal bus accident at 18, left Frida crippled and in chronic pain her whole life.
But she managed to make a virtue out of adversity, and astonishing original art out of her pain.
she was a Mexican, female artist, who was disabled, in a male-dominated environment,
in post-revolutionary Mexico. A feminist icon who broke all social conventions
and produced some of the most haunting and visionary images of the 20th century.
In 1939, Frida Kahlo's career was taking off, but at the same time her personal life was falling apart.
It was under these circumstances that she produced her greatest painting "The Two Fridas".
Ten years previously she married Diego Rivera, a world famous mexican artist 20 years her senior.
The bizarre "beauty and the beast" dynamic captivated the world, and they went on to have one of the
most obsessive and tumultuous relationships in art history. Their infatuation, passion and devotion was
matched by jealousy, anger and betrayal. With both of them having numerous extramarital affairs.
Diego revived the indigenous mural tradition of Mexico.
And Frida would pioneer a new fearless form of self-portraiture.
In 1939 Frida spent three months away from Mexico and Diego.
She had her first solo show in New York which was a huge success. The Hollywood actor Edward G Robinson bought four of her works.
Later that year she had a show in Paris, once again a great success, this time the Louvre
bought one of her works. Andre Breton the leader of the Surrealists, described her paintings as being
"Like a ribbon around a bomb". Her work was a sensation and made the art world, a notorious
"boys only club" sit up and look, at how the female experience had been marginalized in our culture.
At the same time she became a great celebrity in Paris and was featured in Vogue.
Not only were the lines already blurring between her persona and her art, but the commodification
of her image had also began. Frida returned to Mexico in april of 1939, a different woman.
At 32-years old she was the toast of the avant-garde art world, an accomplished artist who had made it
without her famous husband. But while she was away Diego had also enjoyed his independence,
and their relationship started to fall apart.
Over the years, Diego had taken many lovers
Frida had too, men and women. But Diego's affair with her beloved sister Christina - was a step too far.
Frida moved out of their house - and Diego began divorce proceedings.
She was heartbroken, she cut off her hair and abandoned the Mexican clothes that Diego loved.
It was under these traumatic circumstances that she began to paint "The Two Fridas",
which she said at the time "showed the Frida Diego loved - and the one he didn't".
I'm not sure if Frida Kahlo is a great technical painter, but i'm sure that The Two Fridas, is a great painting.
Of 143 paintings by Frida Kahlo, 55 are self-portraits. After her accident at 18 she
spent a year in bed recuperating. Her father gave her paints, and her mother had a special easel made
so she could paint in her hospital bed - and had a mirror placed above her so she could paint herself.
For someone so restricted, her own body was a very convenient subject.
The reason that most of her paintings were small, is that so many of them were painted lying in bed.
The Two Fridas was an exception. It is square. 1.73 meters by 1.73.
it is almost life-size and was Khalo's largest painting.
There is actually a commercial reason behind the change. She was getting a
lot of recognition and was advised that the large canvases were "more commercial".
Frida had so many influences on her work, straight from birth.
Her father was Jewish and born in Germany, a brilliant photographer
who would take portraits of Frida from a very young age. Frida would look straight
at the camera with her characteristic defiance. It marks the beginning of her self-made image.
Her mother was Mexican and a devout Catholic. And although Frida rejected religion,
Catholic imagery filtered down into her work. Often she would use thorns as a metaphor for martyrdom,
combined here with the hummingbird an Aztec mythological symbol. The sacred heart of Jesus
would have been very familiar to her, and like Catholic images of saints, Frida would depict herself expressionless.
The Mexican revolution of 1910 reinvigorated a sense of national pride.
But it also sparked off a cultural renaissance. Artists like Diego Rivera were reviving Maya
and Aztec culture in huge political murals to create a new modern Mexican aesthetic.
Frida was coming from a different angle, painting small self-portraits inspired by mexican folk art.
Her work was not directly political, but her paintings reflected the idea that the personal is political.
Long before the term was coined.
A major influence was "ex-votos" also known as "retablos".
Ex-votos were inexpensive paintings by self-taught artists, on small panels
Often made of tin, they are deeply personal images, offered to saints as a thank you for answered prayers.
Almost any subject is possible, from thanks for finding a missing pet,
to surviving an operation. They are often bordered by a story describing what had happened
In fact Frida's mother commissioned one when she was badly injured in the bus crash at 18.
Frida would go on to emulate them in both style and as a confessional.
They were hugely influential on her work, in the way that the images are reduced to the bare essentials
And neither realism or perspective is important. Their use of allegory and narrative would inspire Frida.
Another popular tradition she drew on was 19th century Mexican portraiture.
Many of whom were skillful enough painters, but with no formal training like Frida herself.
Along with Spanish colonial portraiture, their subjects often have blank expressions and are in a stiff artificial pose.
There is a flat, rigid quality to these paintings that we also get in Frida's art
And in 1939, Frida had admired two paintings at the Louvre,
which almost certainly influenced the composition of The Two Fridas.
Her work is uniquely her own, but like her, it emerged from multiple hybrid sources.
At a time when few mexican women had the opportunity to express themselves at all,
Frida was exploring multiple identities.
In The Two Fridas, a double self portrait - the darker skinned Frida on the right is the indigenous Mexican Frida,
that was adored by her husband, and the lighter skin Frida on the left, is the European Frida that he rejected.
If we look at the Mexican Frida first. This is how we think of her, wearing a traditional "Tehuana" outfit.
The indigenous Tehuana, a matriarchal society, became a cultural symbol for the Mexican revolutionaries.
By dressing the way she did she sent a clear message of cultural identity,
nationalism, AND feminism. But the Tehuana skirts, boxed blouses, flamboyant hairstyles
and facial hair, also had a more practical purpose...
As a disguise.
By focusing attention on her head and shoulders, she concealed and distracted us
from her disabled body. She had already started wearing longer skirts as a child,
to disguise a shorter right leg caused by polio. The movement of the dresses also concealed her limp.
And after the bus accident, she had to wear medical corsets, because of severe spinal injuries.
Over her lifetime she had more than 30 major operations. Including in 1953, the amputation of her right leg.
She would also adopt the "Huipil," a sleeveless blouse made without fastenings, so she could
drop them loosely over a back brace or a plaster cast.
In 2004 a small drawing was found in the back of a wardrobe,
at Casa Azul, Frida's home. It is a self-portrait in charcoal and crayon, that shows
Frida's broken body underneath a transparent dress. She has a shattered column for a spine,
a medical corset confining her torso, and a wasted right leg.
Underneath the drawing, she has written in Spanish: "Appearances can be deceiving".
Yet Frida didn't adopt the indigenous clothes until her wedding day in 1929.
It was in fact Diego who had suggested it - as a show of Mexican pride.
So by discarding the clothes and cutting off her hair after her divorce she was rejecting Diego.
In the painting, Mexican Frida's heart remains intact, sustained by the small portrait of Diego.
Whereas European Frida's heart is disconnected from her beloved Diego, and bleeds profusely onto her dress,
A victorian lace wedding dress similar to the one her mother wore.
The portrait of Diego, Mexican Frida is holding was owned by Frida and was with her until she died.
An artery connects the portrait to her exposed heart. It is then linked to European Frida, whose
heart is even more exposed. This frida is trying to stop the flow of blood that runs through both their veins -
with surgical forceps. It is not working and blood seeps out onto her skirt, mimicking the pattern
Blood is a reoccurring theme in Frida's work, and represents both her physical
and mental suffering. As in an earlier painting, she uses blood as a metaphor for union.
But for Frida, who was unable to have children, it also alludes to womanhood and fertility.
The bleeding heart is a fundamental symbol of Catholicism, but can also be seen as symbolic of Aztec ritual sacrifice.
What is clear to me about this painting is, that although they are suffering and broken, they are supporting each other.
A connective vein unites the loved and unloved Frida. The European and Mexican Frida.
The weaker heart supports the stronger one.
This is a painting about the loss of a relationship,
But the duality of her identity is central to the painting.
The complexities of a biracial identity,
and how one balances the two sides was a lifelong concern for Frida.
As usual with her work, the background is stylistically simple, making us focus on the two figures.
The stormy skies signal turmoil and unease - and remind us of El Greco.
We can compare how Frida saw herself at the start of her marriage, with how she saw herself at the end.
In "Frida and Diego", he is the colossal figure the great artist with his palate and brushes,
supporting his adoring timid wife. By contrast the double self-portrait painted at the end of their
marriage, shows that despite her suffering she is her own woman supporting herself.
Frida and Diego remarried in 1940 - less than a year after their divorce.
Their relationship was chaotic, dysfunctional and tempestuous. But ultimately they couldn't
live without each other. Both maintained that they were the love of each other's lives.
Diego rather coldly described Frida as: "The great fact of my life", and she once said:
"There have been two accidents in my life, one was the streetcar, and the other was Diego"
In 1947 The Two Fridas was acquired by the national institute of fine arts in Mexico City,
for four thousand pesos (about one thousand dollars).
That was the highest price that Frida was ever paid for a painting during her lifetime.
In 1953, she had her first solo show in Mexico. A few months later her right leg was amputated at the knee.
It was the beginning of the end, and desperately sick she died a year later.
Frida Kahlo had to fight for her place in the male-dominated art world. Nothing stopped her,
not even her disabilities. She had constructed her own identity around her politics, ethnicity and
disability, and would inspire generations of female artists who still face discrimination.
But although she was moderately successful, it wasn't until the 1970s that she achieved worldwide acclaim.
Mainly known as Diego Rivera's wife in her lifetime,
it wasn't until her work was rediscovered by art historians and feminists,
that we now think of Diego - as Frida Kahlo's husband.