FRIDA KAHLO
(1907-1954), was born and raised near Mexico City and was unhappily married to the painter and muralist Diego Rivera. She had a Hungarian-Jewish
father and a Spanish-Mexican mother and grew up in the midst of the Mexican
Revolution, and throughout her life she would face many struggles. She
contracted Polio aged six, was in a very serious bus accident at 18 and died
from cancer aged 47. Although she would eventually heal from the bus accident,
its memory caused her much trauma and she would often have painful relapses.
She began painting in the Mexican style while confined to bed during her
recovery and about a third of her 155 paintings were self-portraits. I think her
work was a kind of therapy for her from her tragic life. She was popular in the
1940s but her popularity faded after her death until a revival during the 1980s feminist movement.
9 comments:
Hello Bazza, A real coincidence--a friend just paid a visit, and as a present gave me a Frida Kahlo art book. It is made in an interesting way, with cut-out overlapping pages that emphasize different parts of her paintings. I haven't had time yet to thoroughly go over the book, but I am sure that it will be enlightening.
--Jim
Hi Bazza - I have a DVD of her work, shared with Emily Carr, and with Georgia O'Keefe ,.. and the Frida Kahlo 'Exhibition on Screen' at the Towner cinema ... she's fascinating as an artist ... cheers Hilary
For someone who had polio, a critical bus accident, an insensitive, rather brutal husband and no children Frida was a VERY strong woman. I had not seen her works when I was at Uni, but I caught up in her revival era. What a woman!
Jim: How nice. That book sounds wonderful. As we are about to downsize our home, I have been giving some of my large collection of art books away. I would offer some to you but it wouldn't be practical!😊
Hilary: Georgia O'Keefe is another painter that I admire. I have seen very little of Emily Carr - I think she's a colourist?
Hels: I agree, an incredible but too short life. She fought against all of the adversity instead of letting it overwhelm her. I deliberately didn't want to say too much about her husband.
I didn't know of Ronald Searle until he appeared in dozens of consecutive posts in the Art & Artists blog.
Hels: That is my main source of artistic images. It's better than Google Images! Ronald Searle post about to be uploaded!
Frida Khalo has become a bit of a world icon, on a par with Che Guevara it seems. Their images appear all over the world. .
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