20th Century Artist - Frida Kahlo

    Born in Coyoacán, Mexico City in 1907 was a very famous female artist name Frida Kahlo. She was of German and Spanish decent but did not focus largely on the European side of her life. When she was only eighteen, she was involved in a horrible bus accident which left her very handicapped. She allowed this situation to turn into a positive one and began painting. Instead of letting this come in her way, she used this to fuel her desire for art and fulfill her ambitions. She did marry a painter as well and was not seen as seriously by his painter male friends. There was one group of males who accepted her and said she was one of them, her response to that was ""Thank you, misters, but I am in my own world, not yours"(GG 79). She did not want to be with the men, she wanted to be a great WOMAN artist. 

     Women were still not accepted as painters as easily as men were so it certainly was not easy for her to strive in these societal conditions. When she was born, it was a time of difficulty, The Mexican Revolution was going on and they were being ruled by a dictator. She was living in conditions of poverty and not many privileges, she witnessed much violence and  

     Most of the time the subject matter of Kahlo's paintings were herself, she said "I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best". She worked straight from her bed with a special easel made just for her. A lot of her inspiration were events and parts of her life so she could portray her trouble to others through art. In one work of art called, "Without Hope", painted in 1945 by Kahlo, we see a part of her life struggle. She is laying in bed and being forced fed. Because in real life she had a special diet due to her accident which most people did not need. She wanted to emphasize the tough times she had to go through. Her arms are pinned down, giving the sense that she has no control, no power, and no hope as the title says. She used oil on canvas and used surrealism in this piece of artwork.
    She has a strong influence of other females artists die to all of her struggles she overcame. Kahlo could never live a normal life, she couldn't even give her husband any children due to her poor health conditions. Both of them would have extramarital affairs, they even got divorced and then remarried again. Since her life in seen in her work, other artists see the pain and what she has gone through. It gives strength and certainly puts things into perspective for certain artists.     

Without Hope, 1945 

In another painting, The Broken Column, painted in 1944 Kahlo portrays herself after her accident. It shows her spine all fractured and she is sitting in a body cast showing her misery. She in real life was forced to wear this steel corset for about five months of her life, so Kahlo felt this part of her life had to be shared with everyone else. The corset is very cage-like, showing she in confined like an animal or somebody even in jail. This was a painting reflecting her physical and emotional pain. They style was primitivism and she used oil on canvas for this as well. She as seen as a full bodied woman, but still so broken on the inside.   

The Broken Column, 1944

Frida Kahlo is a known symbol for women's struggle in art. She is one of the most famous Mexican artists due to her unusual paintings and their topics. At times people may thing they are rather egocentric, but they are not just paintings of herself and her beauty as many women self portraits are. She didn't truly become famous until the 80's and was known as someone other than just Diego's wife. Outside Mexico her first ever retrospective opened in London in 1982, she gained recognition outside Mexico. She has inspired not just artists today, but also musicians such as James Newton have written albums inspired by her and even movies have been made about her life.

Frida Kahlo ill in bed in real life. 

 Here is a documentary about her life

Citations:

   Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. New York, NY: Thames and Hudson, 1990. Print.

   The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. New York:                     Penguin, 1998. Print.
   "Frida Kahlo." - Paintings, Biography, and Quotes of. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2012. <http://www.fridakahlo.org/>.
   "Frida Kahlo - One of the Most Influential Artists of the Twentieth Century." Yahoo! Contributor Network. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2012. <http://voices.yahoo.com/frida-kahlo-one-most-influential-artists-of-418739.html?cat=49>.