Frida Kahlo Biography Frida Kahlo Biography Self Portrait With Necklace Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderon, as her name appears on her birth certificate was born on July 6, 1907 in the house of her parents, known as La Casa Azul (The Blue House), in Coyoacan. At the time, this was a small town on the outskirts of Mexico City. Her father, Guillermo Kahlo (1872-1941), was born Carl Wilhelm Kahlo in Pforzheim, Germany. He was the son of the painter and goldsmith Jakob Heinrich Kahlo and Henriett E. Kaufmann. Kahlo claimed her father was of Jewish and Hungarian ancestry, but a 2005 book on Guillermo Kahlo, Fridas Vater (Schirmer/Mosel, 2005), states that he was descended from a long line of German Lutherans. Wilhelm Kahlo sailed to Mexico in 1891 at the age of nineteen and, upon his arrival, changed his German forename, Wilhelm, to its Spanish equivalent, 'Guillermo'.

During the late 1930s, in the face of rising Nazism in Germany, Frida acknowledged and asserted her German heritage by spelling her name, Frieda (an allusion to "Frieden", which means "peace" in German). Frida's mother, Matilde Calderon y Gonzalez, was a devout Catholic of primarily indigenous, as well as Spanish descent. Frida's parents were married shortly after the death of Guillermo's first wife during the birth of her second child. Although their marriage was quite unhappy, Guillermo and Matilde had four daughters, with Frida being the third. She had two older half sisters. Frida once remarked that she grew up in a world surrounded by females. Throughout most of her life, however, Frida remained close to her father. The Mexican Revolution began in 1910 when Kahlo was three years old. Later, however, Kahlo claimed that she was born in 1910 so people would directly associate her with the revolution. In her writings, she recalled that her mother would usher her and her sisters inside the house as gunfire echoed in the streets of her hometown, which was extremely poor at the time.

Occasionally, men would leap over the walls into their backyard and sometimes her mother would prepare a meal for the hungry revolutionaries. Kahlo contracted polio at age six, which left her right leg thinner than the left, which Kahlo disguised by wearing long skirts. It has been conjectured that she also suffered from spina bifida, a congenital disease that could have affected both spinal and leg development. As a girl, she participated in boxing and other sports. In 1922, Kahlo was enrolled in the Preparatoria, one of Mexico's premier schools, where she was one of only thirty-five girls. Kahlo joined a gang at the school and fell in love with the leader, Alejandro Gomez Arias. During this period, Kahlo also witnessed violent armed struggles in the streets of Mexico City as the Mexican Revolution continued. Career as painter Self Portrait 1932 After the accident, Frida Kahlo turned her attention away from the study of medicine to begin a full-time painting career. The accident left her in a great deal of pain while she recovered in a full body cast; she painted to occupy her time during her temporary state of immobilization.

Her self-portraits became a dominant part of her life when she was immobile for three months after her accident. Frida Kahlo once said, "I paint myself because I am often alone and I am the subject I know best". Her mother had a special easel made for her so she could paint in bed, and her father lent her his box of oil paints and some brushes. Drawing on personal experiences, including her marriage, her miscarriages, and her numerous operations, Kahlo's works often are characterized by their stark portrayals of pain. Of her 143 paintings, 55 are self-portraits which often incorporate symbolic portrayals of physical and psychological wounds. She insisted, "I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality". Kahlo was deeply influenced by indigenous Mexican culture, which is apparent in her use of bright colors and dramatic symbolism. She frequently included the symbolic monkey. In Mexican mythology, monkeys are symbols of lust, yet Kahlo portrayed them as tender and protective symbols. Christian and Jewish themes are often depicted in her work. She combined elements of the classic religious Mexican tradition with surrealist renderings.

At the invitation of Andre Breton, she went to France in 1939 and was featured at an exhibition of her paintings in Paris. The Louvre bought one of her paintings, The Frame, which was displayed at the exhibit. This was the first work by a 20th century Mexican artist ever purchased by the internationally renowned museum. Stormy marriage Portrait Of Diego Rivera As a young artist, Kahlo approached the famous Mexican painter, Diego Rivera, whose work she admired, asking him for advice about pursuing art as a career. He immediately recognized her talent and her unique expression as truly special and uniquely Mexican. He encouraged her development as an artist and soon began an intimate relationship with Frida. They were married in 1929, despite the disapproval of Frida's mother. They often were referred to as The Elephant and the Dove, a nickname that originated when Kahlo's father used it to express their extreme difference in size.[citation needed] Their marriage often was tumultuous. Notoriously, both Kahlo and Rivera had fiery temperaments and both had numerous extramarital affairs.

The openly bisexual Kahlo had affairs with both men (including Leon Trotsky) and women; Rivera knew of and tolerated her relationships with women, but her relationships with men made him jealous. For her part, Kahlo became outraged when she learned that Rivera had an affair with her younger sister, Cristina. The couple eventually divorced, but remarried in 1940. Their second marriage was as turbulent as the first. Their living quarters often were separate, although sometimes adjacent. Later years Active communist sympathizers, Kahlo and Rivera befriended Leon Trotsky as he sought political sanctuary from Joseph Stalin's regime in the Soviet Union. Initially, Trotsky lived with Rivera and then at Kahlo's home, where they reportedly had an affair. Trotsky and his wife then moved to another house in Coyoacan where, later, he was assassinated. Death Viva la Vida, 1954 A few days before Frida Kahlo died on July 13, 1954, she wrote in her diary: "I hope the exit is joyful - and I hope never to return - Frida".

The official cause of death was given as pulmonary embolism, although some suspected that she died from overdose that may or may not have been accidental. An autopsy was never performed. She had been very ill throughout the previous year and her right leg had been amputated at the knee, owing to gangrene. She also had a bout of bronchopneumonia near that time, which had left her quite frail. Later, in his autobiography, Diego Rivera wrote that the day Kahlo died was the most tragic day of his life, adding that, too late, he had realized that the most wonderful part of his life had been his love for her. A pre-Columbian urn holding her ashes is on display in her former home, La Casa Azul (The Blue House), in Coyoacan. Today it is a museum housing a number of her works of art and numerous relics from her personal life. (From Wikipedia) Frida Kahlo biography of Frida Kahlo Frida Kahlo Biography Considered one of the Mexico's greatest artist, Frida Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907 in Coyocoan, Mexico City, Mexico.

She grew up in the family's home where was later referred as the Blue House or Casa Azul. He father is a German descendant and photographer. He immigrated to Mexico where he met and married her mother Matilde. Her mother is half Amerindian and half Spanish. Frida Kahlo has two older sisters and one younger sister. Frida Kahlo has poor health in her childhood. She contracted polio at age of 6 and had to be bedridden for nine months. This disease caused her right leg and food grow much thinner than her left one. She limped after she recovered from the polio. She has been wearing long skirts to cover that for the rest of her life. Her father encouraged her to do lots of sports to help her recover. She played soccer, went swimming, and even did wrestle, which is very unusual at that time for a girl. She has kept a very close relationship with her father for her whole life. Frida Kahlo attended the renowned National Preparatory School in Mexico city in year of 1922. There are only thirty-five female students enrolled in that school and she soon became famous for her outspokenness and bravery.

At this school she first met the famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera for the first time. Rivera at that time was working on a mural called The Creation on the school campus. Frida often watched it and she told a friend she will marry him someday. At the same year, Kahlo joined a gang of students which shared the similar political and intellectual views. She fell in love with the leader Alejandro Gomez Arias. On a September afternoon when she traveled with Gomez Arias on a bus the tragic accident happened. The bus collided with a streetcar and Frida Kahlo was seriously injured. A steel handrail impaled her through the hip. Her spine and pelvis are fractured and this accident left her in a great deal of pain, both physically and physiologically. She was injured so badly and had to stay in the Red Cross Hospital in Mexico City for several weeks. After that she returned home for further recovery. She had to wear full body cast for three months. To kill the time and alleviate the pain, she started painting and finished her first first self-portrait the following year. Frida Kahlo once said, "I paint myself because I am often alone and I am the subject I know best".

Her parents encouraged her to paint and made a special easel made for her so she could paint in bed. They also gave her brushes and boxes of paints. Frida Kahlo reconnected with Rivera in 1928. She asked him to evaluate her work and he encouraged her. The two soon started the romantic relationship. Despite her mother's objection, Frida and Diego Rivera got married in the next year. During their earlier years as a married couple, Frida had to move a lot based on Diego's work. In 1930, they lived in San Francisco, Calfonia. Then they moved to New York City for Rivera's artwork show at Museum of Modern Art . They later moved to Detroit while Diego Rivera worked for Detroit Institute of Arts . In 1932, Kahlo added more realistic and surrealistic components in her painting style. In the painting titled Henry Ford Hospital(1932) , Frida Kahlo lied on a hospital bed naked and was surrounded with a few things floating around, which includes a fetus, a flower, a pelvis, a snail, all connected by veins. This painting was an expression of her feelings about her second miscarriage.

It is as personal as her other self-portraits. In 1933, Kahlo was living in New York City with husband Diego Rivera. Rivera was commissioned by Nelson Rockefeller to create a mural named as Man at the Crossroads at Rockefeller Center. Rivera tried to include Vladimir Lenin in the painting, who is a communist leader. Rockefeller stopped his work and that part was painted over. The couple had to move back to Mexico after this incident. They returned and live in San Angel, Mexico. Frida Kahlo and Diego Rievea's marriage is not an usual one. They had been keeping separate homes and studios for all those years. Diego had so many affairs and one of that was with Kahlo's sister Cristina. Frida Kahlo was so sad and she cut off her long hair to show her desperation to the betrayal. She has been longed for children but she cannot bear one due to the bus accident. She was heartbroken when she experienced a second miscarriage in 1934. Kahlo and Rivera has been separated for a few times but they always went back together. In 1937 they helped Leon Trotsky and his wife Natalia.

Leon Trotsky is a exiled communist and rival of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Kahlo and Rivera welcomed the couple together and let them stay at her Blue House. Kahlo also had a brief affair with Leon Trotsky when the couple stayed at her house. In 1938, Frida Kahlo became friend of Andre Breton, who is one of the primary figures of Surrealism movement. Frida said she never considered herself as a Surrealist "until Andr� Breton came to Mexico and told me I was one." She also wrote, "Really I do not know whether my paintings are surrealist or not, but I do know that they are the frankest expression of myself". "Since my subjects have always been my sensations, my states of mind and the profound reactions that life has been producing in me, I have frequently objectified all this in figures of myself, which were the most sincere and real thing that I could do in order to express what I felt inside and outside of myself." In the same year, she had an exhibition at New York City gallery. She sold some of her paintings and got two commissions. One of that is from Clare Boothe Luce to paint her friend Dorothy Hale who committed suicide.

She painted The Suicide of Dorothy Hale (1939), which tells the story of Dorothy's tragic leap. The patron Luce was horrified and almost destroyed this painting. The next year, 1939, Kahlo was invited by Andre Breton and went to Paris. Her works are exhibited there and she is befriended with artists such as Marc Chagall and Pablo Picasso . She and Rivera got divorced that year and she painted one of her most famous painting, The Two Fridas (1939). But soon Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera remarried in 1940. The second marriage is about the same as the first one. They still keep separate lives and houses. Both of them had infidelities with other people during the marriage. Kahlo received a commission from the Mexican government for five portraits of important Mexican women in 1941, but she was unable to finish the project. She lost her beloved father that year and continued to suffer from chronic health problems. Despite her personal challenges, her work continued to grow in popularity and was included in numerous group shows around this time.

In the year of 1944, Frida Kahlo painted one of her most famous portrait, The Broken Column . In this painting she depicted herself naked and split down the middle. Her spine are shattered like column. She wears a surgical brace and there are nails all through her body, which is the indication of the consistent pain she went through. In this painting, Frida expressed her physical challenges by her art. During that time, she had a few surgeries and had to wear special corsets to protect her back spine. She seeks lots of medical treatment for her chronic pain but nothing really worked. Her health condition has been worsening in 1950. That year she was diagnosed with gangrene in her right foot. She became bedridden for the next nine month and had to stay in hospital and had several surgeries. But with great persistence, Frida Kahlo continued to work and paint. In the year of 1953, she had a solo exhibition in Mexican. Although she had limited mobility at that time, she showed up on the exhibition's opening ceremony. She arrived by ambulance, and welcomed the attendees, celebrated the ceremony in a bed the gallery set up for her. A few months later, she had to accept another surgery.

Part of her right leg got amputated to stop the gangrene. With the poor physical condition, she is also deeply depressed. She even had a inclination for suicide. Frida Kahlo has been out and in hospital during that year. But despite her health issues, she has been active with the political movement. She showed up at the demonstration against US backed overthrow of President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala on July 2. This is her last public appearance. About one week after her 47th birthday, Frida Kahlo passed away at her beloved Bule House. She was publicly reported to die of a pulmonary embolism, but there are speculation which was saying she died of a possible suicide. Frida Kahlo's fame has been growing after her death. Her Blue House was opened as a museum in the year of 1958. In 1970s the interest on her work and life are renewed due to the feminist movement, since she was viewed as an icon of female creativity. In 1983, Hayden Herrera published his book on her, A Biography of Frida Kahlo, which drew more attention from the public to this great artist.

In the year of 2002, a movie named Frida was released, staring alma Hayek as Frida Kahlo and Alfred Molina as Diego Rivera. This movie was nominated for six Academy Awards and won for Best Makeup and Original Score. MOST POPULAR PAINTINGS Frida Kahlo Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works | The Art Story Like The Art Story on Facebook Follow The Art Story on Google+ "I've done my paintings well... and they have a message of pain in them, but I think they'll interest a few people. They're not revolutionary, so why do I keep on believing they're combative?" Synopsis Frida Kahlo's work was influenced by traumatic physical and psychological events from her childhood and early adulthood, including a crippling accident and the infidelity of her husband. In addition to personal issues, Kahlo's often brooding and introspective subject matter also deals with questions of national identity. Her mixed ancestry - Mexican and German - provided a rich source of subject matter, particularly during the Second World War, when Kahlo changed the spelling of her first name to one that was less Germanic.

Her works are often categorized as Surrealist because of her sometimes bizarre and disturbing themes, but unlike the Surrealists, Kahlo was not interested in subject matter derived from dreams or the subconscious - her art was almost always starkly autobiographical. In later life, she was forced to rely on painkillers that affected the quality of her output. She has now become a cultural icon and is especially revered in her home country for her focus on her Mexican identity, or Mexicanidad. Key Ideas Using her personal tragedies - both physical and psychological - combined with a realistic painting style, Kahlo produced images that were emotionally raw and visually disturbing. Her artistic output was dominated by self-portraits that often show the artist suffering. Kahlo's interest in her own mixed German-Mexican ancestry in conjunction with the influence of her husband's strong nationalism in his own art meant that many of Kahlo's works dealt with combined issues of national identity, her husband's looming presence as an artist in his own right, and/or her role as La Mexicana, the traditional Mexican woman and wife.

Though not an official member of Surrealism, Kahlo's bizarre imagery along with her linear style was reminiscent of Surrealists such as Salvador Dalí with the difference being that Kahlo's subject matter was deeply personal rather than humorous or intellectual. She was not interested in automatic writing, biomorphism, dreams or the subconscious, all of which provided a focus for Surrealism. Most Important Art The Two Fridas (Las dos Fridas) (1939) This double self-portrait is one of Kahlo's most recognized compositions, and is symbolic of the artist's pain during her divorce from Rivera and the subsequent transitioning of her constructed identity. On the right, the artist is shown in modern European attire, wearing the costume she donned prior to her marriage to Rivera. Throughout their marriage, given Rivera's strong nationalism, Kahlo became increasingly interested in indigenism and began to explore traditional Mexican costume, which she wears in the portrait on the left. It is the Mexican Kahlo that holds a locket with an image of Rivera. The stormy sky in the background, and the artist's bleeding heart - a fundamental symbol of Catholicism and also symbolic of Aztec ritual sacrifice - accentuate Kahlo's personal tribulation and physical pain.

Symbolic elements frequently possess multiple layers of meaning in Kahlo's pictures; the recurrent theme of blood represents both metaphysical and physical suffering, gesturing also to the artist's ambivalent attitude toward accepted notions of womanhood and fertility. Oil on canvas - Museum of Modern Art, Mexico City, Mexico Like The Art Story on Facebook Biography Childhood Frida Kahlo (Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo Calderon) was born in what is now known as Casa Azul in Coyoacan, a town on the outskirts of Mexico City. Her father, Wilhelm Kahlo, was German, and had moved to Mexico at a young age where he remained for the rest of his life, eventually taking over the photography business of Kahlo's mother's family. Kahlo's mother, Matilde Calderon y Gonzalez, born of mixed Spanish and Indian ancestry, was Wilhelm's second wife, and raised Frida and her five sisters in a strict and religious household. Aside from her mother's rigidity and tendency toward hysteric outbursts, several events in Kahlo's childhood affected her psyche for the rest of her life. At age six, Kahlo contracted polio and was forced to remain in bed for nine months, walking with a limp after recovery.

Wilhelm, with whom Kahlo was very close, enrolled his daughter at the German College in Mexico City and introduced Kahlo to the writings of European philosophers such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, and Arthur Schopenhauer. Kahlo's mixed European and Mexican heritage permanently affected the artist's approach to her life and artwork. Following the Mexican Revolution and Minister of Education Jose Vasconcelos's new education policy, in 1922, Kahlo was one of 35 girls admitted to the National Preparatory School, where she planned to study medicine, botany, and the social sciences. The artist befriended a dissident group of students known as the Cachuchas, who confirmed Kahlo's rebellious spirit and her interest in poetry and literature. In 1925, Kahlo was involved in a nearly fatal bus accident, where she suffered multiple fractures throughout her body and a crushed pelvis. She spent nine months in the hospital, immobile and bound in a plaster corset. During her long recovery she began experimenting in small-scale autobiographical portraiture, permanently abandoning her medical pursuits.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Early Training Kahlo's early training was drawn from an eclectic mix of influences. As a child in her father's photography studio, she learned to work in a small format with a meticulous attention to minute details. This acute pictorial realism influenced the artist's intensity of approach to psychological portraiture. During her years at the National Preparatory School, Kahlo also took drawing lessons in Fernando Fernandez's studio where she acquired training in draftsmanship. At age 15, Kahlo witnessed Diego Rivera painting the Creation mural (1922) in the amphitheater of the Preparatory School, a moment of infatuation and fascination for the young artist that she would pursue later in life. But, despite these directions, Kahlo's most influential early experimentation with painting was during the months of convalescence at home after her bus accident.

Gifted with a set of paints from her father, Kahlo spent hours studying herself, and more importantly, confronting existential questions raised by her trauma such as dissociation from identity, death, and interiority. The duality of autobiographical content - both the physical experience and interiority of the person - evolved as the central qualities of Kahlo's painting practice. In 1927, slowly recovering, Kahlo was forced to contribute to her family's expenses and her medical bills. In contact with her friends from the Cachuchas group, Kahlo began to familiarize herself with the artistic and Communist circles in Mexico City, including figures such as the militant photo-journalist Tina Modotti and the Cuban revolutionary Julio Antonio Mella. In 1928, having officially joined the Mexican Communist Party, Kahlo sought out Diego Rivera in order to discuss a possible career as an artist. One year later, the two married and moved to Cuernavaca where Kahlo devoted herself to indigenous themes in painting, at times even embodying Mexican folkloric rituals wearing a traditional Tehuana costume for her spouse.

Mature Period By the early 1930s, Kahlo's painting evolved to include a more assertive sense of Mexican identity, a facet of her artwork that stemmed from her exposure to the modernist indigenist movement in Mexico and her interest in preserving the revival of Mexicanidad during the rise of fascism in Europe. Kahlo's interest in distancing herself from her Germanic roots is evidenced in her change of name from Frieda to Frida. Concurrently, two failed pregnancies in the early 1930s, in addition to the revival of Mexican folkloric expression such as the ex-voto, contributed to Kahlo's simultaneously harsh and beautiful representation of the female experience through symbolism and autobiography. Throughout the 1930s, life in Mexico was tense for Kahlo: Rivera was an unfaithful husband and the revolutionary climate leading up to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War made for an explosive atmosphere. Kahlo separated from Rivera in 1935, renting a flat in Mexico City, and began a short-lived affair with the Japanese sculptor Isamu Noguchi.

The following year, Kahlo joined the Fourth International and returned to the Casa Azul, which became a meeting point for international intellectuals, artists, and activists and where she ensured the safety of Leon Trotsky and his wife. Several of Kahlo's masterpieces, including The Two Fridas (1939), were painted in the late1930s and early 19s and reflect the difficulty of this period. In a visit to Mexico City in 1938, the founder of Surrealism, André Breton, was enchanted with Kahlo's painting, and hosted the artist's first exhibition in Paris in 1939 at Galerie Renou et Colle. The show was enormously successful; however, the Western, romanticized vision of pastoral Mexico by members of the European bourgeois disgusted Kahlo, though she would exhibit with the Surrealists in the Mexico City exhibition Apparition: the Great Sphinx of the Night in January 1940, which was considered the first international exhibition of Surrealism in the Americas. Late Years and Death Following Trotsky's assassination, Kahlo joined Rivera in San Francisco in September of 1940.

Kahlo had fallen ill, and was treated by her private doctor, Dr. Eloesser. Kahlo remarried Rivera shortly after, and, returned to Mexico City, where the two maintained separate flats. Kahlo continued to dote on her muse, sending him love notes wherever he was working. Throughout the 1940s, the artist's work grew in notoriety and acclaim from international collectors, and was included in several group shows in Mexico. In 1946, Kahlo received a national prize for her painting Moses, and the year after she was offered a teaching position at La Esmeralda. Meanwhile, the artist grew progressively ill from from the long-term effects of her childhood traumas. By June 1946, Kahlo could no longer remain upright and underwent an unsuccessful bone-graft operation on her spine in New York. In 1950, Kahlo was again hospitalized for nine months at the English Hospital in Mexico. Kahlo continued to paint in her final years while also maintaining her political activism, protesting nuclear testing by Western powers.

Kahlo exhibited one last time in Mexico in 1953 at Lola Alvarez Bravo's gallery, the artist's first solo show in Mexico. She was brought to the event in an ambulance and had her four-poster bed placed at the center of the gallery. Kahlo died on July 13, 1954 at Casa Azul, which is today the Frida Kahlo Museum. Legacy A strong individualist who was disengaged from any official artistic movement, Kahlo's artwork has been associated with primitivism, indigenism, and Surrealism. Posthumously, Kahlo's artwork has grown profoundly influential for feminist studies and postcolonial debates, while Kahlo has become an international cultural icon. The artist's celebrity status for mass audiences has resulted in the compartmentalization of the artist's work as representative of interwar Latin American artwork at large, distanced from the complexities of Kahlo's deeply personal subject matter.

Recent exhibitions, such as Unbound: Contemporary Art After Frida Kahlo (2014) at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago have attempted to reframe Kahlo's cultural significance by underscoring her lasting impact on the politics of the body and Kahlo's challenge to mainstream aesthetics of representation. Influences and Connections Frida Kahlo biography A short biography Frida Kahlo is a Mexican painter, born on July 6, 1907 and dead on July 13, 1954. Frida claimed to be born on 1910, the year of the outbreak of the Mexican revolution, because she wanted her life began together with the modern Mexico. This detail well introduces us to a singular personality, characterized since her childhood by a deep sense of independence and rebellion against social and moral ordinary habits, moved by passion and sensuality, proud of her "Mexicanidad" and cultural tradition set against the reigning Americanization: everything mixed with a peculiar sense of humour. Her life was marked by physical suffering, started with the polio contracted at the age of five and worsen by her life-dominating event occurred in 1925.

A bus accident caused severe injuries to her body owing to a pole that pierced her from the stomach to the pelvis. The medicine of her time tortured her body with surgical operations (32 throughout her life), corsets of different kinds and mechanical "stretching" systems. Lots of her works were painted laying in the bed. Because of these physical conditions Frida could not have children and this was devastating for her. She had a great love, Diego Rivera (she married twice with this man and dedicated to him a passionate diary) but also a lot of lovers, men and women, such as Leon Trotsky and André Breton's wife.... It is impossible to sum up in few lines the complexity and charm of Frida's life. Among her numerous biographies I would suggest "FRIDA. A Biography of Frida Kahlo" by Hayden Herrera and the following online resources: Google Cultural Institute (in Spanish) - by Patricia Cordero for Museo Dolores Olmedo Biography.com (follow the below link) Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera - Biography.com Crime & Scandal Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo first met Diego Rivera when she was an art student hoping to get advice on her career from the famous Mexican muralist.

Diego Rivera - Mini Biography (TV-14; 4:01) A short biography of Diego Rivera whose view that art should belong to everyone profoundly impacted the international art scene and led to his reintroduction of Fresco paintings in the 1930s. Frida Kahlo first met Diego Rivera when she was an art student hoping to get advice on her career from the famous Mexican muralist. Although Rivera was married, a courtship ensued. They wed in 1929 (he was 42, she was 22) much to the disapproval of Frida's parents, who referred to the couple as "the elephant and the dove." With volatile tempers and countless infidelities, the marriage was notoriously tumultuous. The couple divorced in 1939 only to remarry a year later, though the second marriage was just as turbulent as the first. Both have long been recognized as important painters who achieved great international popularity during their lifetimes. People In This Group Frida (2002) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This!

Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error A biography of artist Frida Kahlo, who channeled the pain of a crippling injury and her tempestuous marriage into her work. Director: From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC a list of 44 titles created 11 Oct 2012 a list of 40 titles created 27 Sep 2013 a list of 25 titles created 11 months ago a list of 34 titles created 10 months ago a list of 21 titles created 2 months ago Search for " Frida " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Won 2 Oscars. Another 14 wins & 42 nominations. See more awards » Videos Edit Storyline "Frida" chronicles the life Frida Kahlo shared unflinchingly and openly with Diego Rivera, as the young couple took the art world by storm.

From her complex and enduring relationship with her mentor and husband to her illicit and controversial affair with Leon Trotsky, to her provocative and romantic entanglements with women, Frida Kahlo lived a bold and uncompromising life as a political, artistic, and sexual revolutionary. Written by Anonymous Rated R for sexuality/nudity and language | See all certifications » Parents Guide: 22 November 2002 (USA) See more » Also Known As: $205,996 (USA) (25 October 2002) Gross: Salma Hayek did some of the paintings in the movie. See more » Goofs When Frida is brought home from hospital and lying in her bed in a cast, through days and nights, the amount of photos on her bed changes from 1 to 2 and back. See more » Quotes [first lines] Frida Kahlo : Careful, guys. This corpse is still breathing. Try to get me there in one piece.

Splendid movie about two excellent Mexican painters and their troublesome relationship 5 May 2005 | by ma-cortes – See all my reviews The movie deals with the biography of Frida Kalho (well performed by Salma Hayek , though Laura San Giacomo was originally set to play her but was dropped when fans objected to a non-Mexican playing the role) who after a terrible accident with a trolley causes herself a crippling injury , then she gets away from her parents (Roger Rees and Patricia Spinola) to live on the paintings . She falls in love with famed muralist Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina , he gained 50 lbs , 23 kg , for this character) who bears a separated marriage (to Valeria Golino) . Later on , Frida is wedded to Diego and the troubles come out . The yarn relies heavily upon their tempestuous marriage , because the different artistic temperaments burst , creating a stormy relation . The picture is correctly based on historic deeds and even Edward Norton did an uncredited rewrite of the script .

Thus , it appears Leon Trosky who has romance to Frida- , but he's murdered with a hatchet by Ramon Mercader and then is framed Diego Rivera , though later being absolved . Besides , there are several famous people : Siqueiros (Antonio Banderas) , Nelson Rockefeller (Edward Norton) , Leon Trosky (Geoffrey Rush) and others very secondaries such as Andre Breton or Josephine Baker . Frida is specially known by her mustachioed and one-brow paintings and Rivera by his impressive murals and one of them was ordered to break by Nelson Rockefeller but reflected to famous communists on the ¨Rockefeller Center¨ . The film was perfectly directed by Julie Taymor and includes magnificent cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto as when imaginatively brings to life the scenes on the Kalho's paintings , where the color is glimmer and spellbound . The motion picture attained success and achieved enough box office , obtaining two Oscars for the awesome Musical Score (Elliot Goldenthal) and Make-up . Rating : Above average . Well Worth watching. 18 of 20 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo .

Life of Frida | PBS With slim sable brushes, Frida Kahlo painstakingly rendered her bold unibrow and mustache in dozens of self-portraits. This same Frida also shaved three years off her age, claiming 1910 to be the year she was born in Coyoac�n, Mexico, instead of 1907. Vanity? Hardly. Frida, always her own favorite model, was not about preserving youthful beauty so much as identifying herself with Mexico, her beloved homeland. Frida's "acquired birth year" just so happens to coincide with the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution (1910) and the overthrow of President Porfirio Diaz. If her glaring lie seems jarring and incongruous � disturbing, even, in the face of her usual unabashed candor � reflect for a moment on the juxtaposed images that characterize her paintings. Frida never allowed apparent facts � her own birth certificate, for instance � to get in the way of a higher truth; the truth in this case being that she and modern Mexico were inextricably bound in both revolution and renaissance.

An understanding of Frida Kahlo, the person as well as the paintings, requires a setting aside of conventional thoughts � and dates, as the case may be. At the same time, paradoxically enough, it requires the context of history. She was a revolutionary artist born amidst political chaos in her homeland; born in the year of its own bloody rebirth, give or take a couple years. That image, according to the artist, is more truthful than fact itself. It would be quibbling to disagree. An Unconventional Union No matter whether she was in Paris, New York or Coyoac�n, she clothed herself elaborately in the Tehuana costumes of Indian maidens. As much as Frida's country defined her, so, too, did her husband, the celebrated muralist, Diego Rivera. If Mexico was her parent, then Rivera � 20 years her senior � was her "big-child." She often referred to him as her baby.

She met him while still a schoolgirl and later, in 1929, became the third wife of a man who gaily accepted the diagnosis of his doctor that he was "unfit for monogamy." Needless to say, theirs was an unconventional and problematic, if passionate, union that survived numerous affairs (on both their parts), separations and even a divorce in 1939 and subsequent remarriage in 1940. Their love proved hardy, like the roots in Frida's painting "The Love Embrace." But Frida's hold on Diego as a husband was tenuous. Marriage was hardly a salve for the suffering that had characterized Frida's young life � a horrific trolley car accident left her broken as a youth and debilitated throughout much of her adulthood. Diego's incorrigible philandering � once with Frida's own younger sister, Cristina � only exacerbated her pain.

"I suffered two grave accidents in my life," she once said, "One in which a streetcar knocked me down � The other accident is Diego." As a couple, the Riveras remained childless; this, as much as Diego's infidelities, was a source of great anguish for Frida for whom Diego was everything: "my child, my lover, my universe." As individual artists, the pair was wildly productive. Each regarded the other as Mexico's greatest painter. Frida referred to Diego as the "architect of life." Each took a deep, proprietary pride in the other's creations, drastically different as they were in habit and style. On a high scaffold in the outdoors, the driven Diego painted for days on end. He loved painting as obsessively as Frida loved him, rendering grand public murals with political themes. Frida, meanwhile, was often immobilized in a cast in her bed, or confined to a hospital room, either anticipating a surgery or recovering from one. She alternately languished and painted intensely personal works. About a third of her entire body of work � about 55 paintings � consists of self-portraits.

In some, she stares out, willfully impassive, her face mask-like; in others, graphic depictions of her internal bodily organs reveal corresponding states of mind. She shied away from nothing, revealing � indeed, reveling in � the indignity of heartbreak, as well as the gut-wrenching pain of abortion and miscarriage. Diego, a social realist, actually welled up with tears of pride when Picasso once admired the eyes in a painting of Frida's. And he wrote this glowing recommendation to a friend about an early exhibition of her work: "I recommend her to you, not as a husband but as an enthusiastic admirer of her work, acid and tender, hard as steel and delicate and fine as a butterfly's wing, loveable as a beautiful smile, and profound and cruel as the bitterness of life." Frida the Surrealist?

Although Frida's work, often fantastic and sometimes gory, has been described as surrealism, she once wrote that she never knew she was a surrealist "until Andr� Breton came to Mexico and told me I was one." ("The art of Frida Kahlo is a ribbon about a bomb," Breton wrote, admiringly.) However, Frida eschewed labels. Diego argued that Frida was a realist. Her principal biographer, Hayden Herrera, seems to agree, writing that even in her most enigmatic and complex painting, "What the Water Gave Me," Frida is "down to earth," having depicted "real images in the most literal, straightforward way." Like much of Mexican art, Frida's paintings "interweave fact and fantasy as if the two were inseparable and equally real," Herrera adds. "Really I do not know whether my paintings are surrealist or not, but I do know that they are the frankest expression of myself," Frida once wrote.

"Since my subjects have always been my sensations, my states of mind and the profound reactions that life has been producing in me, I have frequently objectified all this in figures of myself, which were the most sincere and real thing that I could do in order to express what I felt inside and outside of myself." A Lust for Life Frida, the person and her art, defy easy definition. Rather, they lend themselves to ambiguous description. Often volatile and obsessive, Frida was alternately hopeful and despairing. She loved dancing and crowds and flirtation and seduction � and was often miserably lonely, begging friends and lovers to visit, not to "forget" her. She had a ferocious and often black sense of humor, as well as a sharp command of wit and metaphor. She took great pride in keeping a home for Diego and loved fussing over him, cooking for him and bathing him. She delighted in pets � mischievous spider monkeys and dogs � and adored children, who she treated as equals. She loved nonsense, gossip and dirty jokes. She abhorred pretension. She treated servants like family and students like esteemed colleagues. Frida Kahlo embodied alegr�a, � a lust for life.

She valued honesty, especially to self. She once wrote to a former lover (who allegedly had jilted her because of her physical infirmities), "you deserve the best, the very best, because you are one of the few people in this lousy world who are honest to themselves, and that is the only thing that really counts." When Frida Kahlo died at the age of 47 on July 13, 1954, she left paintings, each of which corresponds to her evolving persona, as well as a collection of effusive letters to lovers and friends, and colorfully candid journal entries. All are irrefutable evidence that her life was nothing less than a quest to be honest to herself � 1910 birthday and all.

Frida Kahlo - Biography - IMDb Frida Kahlo Jump to: Overview (4) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (2) | Trade Mark (1) | Trivia (5) Overview (4) Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón Height 5' 3" (1.6 m) Mini Bio (1) Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderon was born on July 6, 1907 in Mexico City, Mexico. She was the seventh daughter of Guillermo Kahlo (born Carl Wilhelm Kahlo), a successful German photographer who emigrated to Mexico from Pforzheim, and of a Mexican-Indian mother, Matilde Calderón y González. Her father encouraged her interest in art, photography and archaeology; her mother was not so well educated, and also very religious. At the age of 6, Frida suffered an attack of poliomyelitis, which left her with a deformed leg, although exercise and determination helped her to make a good recovery.

At 14, she enrolled into one of Mexico's best schools hoping to forge a career in medicine; however, on September 17, 1925, she suffered serious injury in a traffic accident in Mexico City, breaking her spinal column and pelvis in three places, as well as her collar bone and two ribs. Her right leg, already deformed by polio, was shattered and fractured in 11 places and her right foot was dislocated. Frida spent the next month in hospital, and another 2 months at home recuperating, followed by 32 operations during her life-time. Her first prolonged hospitalization gave her the opportunity to rethink her life and become a painter, in spite of constant pain and discomfort. She met her future husband, painter Diego Rivera , when he painted a mural at her school in 1923; they re-met in 1927 and began an affair.

Although her mother objected to Frida dating Diego mostly because of their age differences (he was exactly 20 years older) and their awkward appearance together (she was 5' 3" tall and weighed only 100 lbs, he was 6' and weighed nearly 300 lbs), they were married in a traditional Catholic civil ceremony in 1929. Melancholia, illness, separation, divorce, and re-marriage marked their relationship; Diego Rivera was a womanizer and their marriage was stormy. Frustrated by his philandering, Frida (a closet lesbian/bisexual) had affairs with both men and women, including a fling with exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky in 1938. Her career as an artist was highly successful and took her around Mexico, New York and Europe. Frida and Diego divorced early in 1940, and soon after, Frida's health deteriorated. Her moderate to heavy drinking, chain-smoking, and a steady diet of candy exacerbated her infirmity.

In the early 1930s, she developed an atrophic ulcer on her right foot, from which several gangrenous toes were amputated in 1934. Frida and Diego Rivera reconciled and were re-married on his 54th birthday, in December 1940, in San Francisco, California. Following the amputation of her right leg in 1953, Frida became a recluse and more deeply depressed, finally losing the will to live. She was found dead at home in Mexico City on July 13, 1954, allegedly from kidney, liver and heart failure, although some believe she committed suicide by taking an overdose of pills. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Matthew Patay Spouse (2)

Question: What nationality was painter Frida Kahlo?
Answer: Mexican