Frida Kahlo

Frida’s life began and ended in Mexico City. Frida was born on July 6, 1907, however she gave her birthdate as July 7, 1910. Her intentions of this was because she wanted the year of her birth to coincide with the year of the outbreak of the Mexican revolution. This way her life would begin with the birth of modern Mexico. At the age of 6, Frida was stricken with polio. The disease caused her right leg to permanently appear much thinner than the other. Kahlo tired to hide the diformality by wearing long skirts. Kahlo’s fiesty personality and encouragement from her father led to her participate in “manly sports.” These sports helped her overcome her disability. When Frida entered high school she was a tomboy. She became the ringleader of a rebellious group of manly boys that continually caused trouble. It was in high school Frida first came in contact with her future husband Diego Rivera. He was to paint a mural in the school’s auditorium. Kahlo grew up alongside the Mexican Revolution. The struggle made an impact on her identity and artwork. On September 17, 1925 when she was 18, Kahlo was riding a bus with her boyfriend when the vehicle collided with a trolly car. She suffered serious injuries in the accident including a broken spinal column, a broken collarbone, broken ribs, broken pelvis, eleven fractures in her right leg, a crushed and dislocated right foot, and a dislocated shoulder. Also, an iron hand rail impaled her abdomen, piercing through her uterus. This accident introduced serious risks to her reproductive ability. Frida was never able to come to terms with this. Psycholgically this was most damaging component in her accident. No one thought she would live, much less walk again, but, after a month in the hospital she went home. With the help of a mirror Kahlo began painting her trademark subject, herself, as she lay in bed for months under body casts. She later said, “I paint myself because I am so often alone, because I am the subject I know best.” Frida did have relapses of the tremendous pain she suffered in her accident and throughout her career she was hospitalized many times. She had to undergo about 30 operations in her lifetime. Frida turned to drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes to ease her pain. Frida’s troubled childhood and the injuries she sustained in the bus accident became themes, or topics of her artistic career. After