There are very few artists who could transform their pain and suffering into a work of art, and it would not be wrong to say that Frida Kahlo is one of them. She was born in Mexico in the year 1907, on July 6th to Matilde Calderon and Guillermo Kahlo (Haye 1). Her mother was from Spain and father had a Hungarian German origin. Frida was infected with polio when she was around seven years old which left a limp in her right leg. The major setback in her life was caused by an accident at the age of 18, she was returning home from school into her bus when a car crashed into the bus, she suffered many fractures and broken ribs, the injuries left lifelong disabilities leaving her barren. She was in a full body cast for many months after the accident. She suffered serious and multiple injuries in 1925 and in 1926, she experimented with panting while she was recovering from those severe injuries (Frida Kahlo Biography 2016).
The long recovery period is the key reason for Frida taking up painting to overcome boredom. She started drawing self-portraits looking at herself in the mirror which covered her bed. Frida wanted to become a doctor and between the years 1922 – 1925 she went to National Preparatory School to study medicine (Siqueira-Batista et al. 139). But fate had something else in store. She was destined to become one of the greatest artists of her time. Her life was marked by unbearable physical pain, betrayals in love, life and chaotic relationship with the artist Diego Rivera from whom she learnt the nuances of art and married him to experience her worst suffering as quoted by her. She expressed sufferings through exposed organs, scars and bleeding bodies in artistic terms. She expresses severe pain in paintings displaying broken figures and damaged spines or piercing nails on a naked body. She was perhaps displaying the physical torture that never left her body throughout her life.
Her talent was recognized and was praised by French poet Andre Breton in 1938. She displayed her paintings for the first time in New York in the year 1938, the paintings depicted her pain that she had to go through during her miscarriages six years earlier with her Mexican artist husband Diego Rivera in Detroit (Lomas and Howell 299). At that time portraying miscarriage with such intensity was almost nonexistent and was associated with medical context. Her paintings are full of symbols displaying maternal productiveness like wombs, lactating breasts, it is just not simple stereotype symbols to show womanhood, it shows more complex reality of her life. One can strongly feel Kahlo’s urge to become a mother in her paintings, to experience a successful pregnancy, but always burdened her with risk of life. While painting her portraits she rose above her suffering and pain and explored untapped areas of truth in raw and radiant colors.
Frida Kahlo received the National Prize of Arts and Sciences in the year1946 by Ministry of Public Education. Paintings like “Henry Ford Hospital”, “The Broken Column”, “Self-Portrait with Monkeys”, “The Dream” are among noticeable work of art. If one studies “Henry Ford Hospital” by Frida Kahlo, she shows herself naked on a hospital bed in a pool of blood and the picture gives a sense of vulnerability captivity and isolation. Different objects superimposed on this scene show her trauma and add to her helpless isolation (Lomas and Howell 299). Her paintings have been displayed in many countries like Australia, Canada, France, and Spain and in about 25 museums in the United States (Frida Kahlo Biography 2016). Frida Kahlo’s work remains an extensive expression of her life expressing her desires, sufferings and how she sought truth to live on with courage, never giving up on her life.
Works Cited
"Frida Kahlo Biography." thefamouspeople. 2016. Web. 6 April. 2016.
Haye, Galen. "Frida Kahlo: A Multimedia Exploration of the Human Spirit and Pain Management." Eastern Michigan University 1.1 (2004): 1-1. Print
Lomas, David and Rosemary Howell. Medical Imagery in the Art of Frida Kahlo. 299 Vol. ENGLAND: British Medical Association, 1989. Web.
Siqueira-Batista, Rodrigo, Mendes, Plínio Duarte, Fonseca, Julia de Oliveira, & Maciel, Marina de Souza. “Art and pain in Frida Kahlo.” Revista Dor,”15.2 (2014):139-144. Print
