Frida Kahlo 20th Century artist

            Twentieth Century artist, Frida Kahlo was born in 1910, in Coyoacan Mexico.  Her father was a German Jew and her mom was a Spaniard.  She did not care for her European side, so tried to appear just as her mother did.  She always said what was on her mind, and some might have said she had a bad temper.  She was in a horrible bus accident when she was eighteen, and was paralyzed for the rest of her life. ``In the end I lost my right leg to this and died young.''( Guerilla 78)  

            Fridas paintings were mostly of herself, and her hardship.  `` I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best.''(Frida Kahlo)  She was always her own model, and rarely had others in her paintings.  During the 20th century, a movement of Surrealism began to grow amongst artists and writer who used fantastic images and incongruous in order to represent unconscious thoughts and dreams. 

            She married a famous Mexican painter, Diego Rivera.  Their marriage was on and off most of the time, due to his infidelity.  He was very much in love with Frida, but he also broke her heart.  Most of her paintings are about their relationship, and how bad it affected her. ``Kahlo painted a feminine reality which makes visible so much that has remained hidden in women's lives. Although these concepts were clearly not part of Kahlo's consciousness, much of her work is a visualization of the theme that the personal is political.’’(Meadows)  She was unlike any of female painter of that time period.  Her work reveals the struggles in the lives of women trying to ‘’get by.’’ As an artist, she was a strong individual. 

            The society in that time appreciated Diego’s work more than hers. Women were not free to discuss personal problems so freely, that is why she made it clear in her art work.  She is almost ‘’painting away’’ her suffering and anxieties.  

The Two Fridas 1939

 In ''The Two Fridas'', this painting depicts her feelings at the time of her divorce.  Her on the left is her heart ripped out, because she is missing Diego. Her on the right is a happier, whole hearted Frida.  This painting is an example of how she shows her feelings involing her lover, but he is never in the paintings.  

Diego and I 1949

Above, is another one of her paintings that reveals a sad side of her relationship with Diego.  She painted this after she found ouyt that he was having an affair with Maria Felix, and intended to marry her. But his plans didnt work out and he ended up staying with Frida.  She was very hurt by this as you can see in the painitng. 

  Frida died in 1954, but was a symbol of independence, strength, and perseverance.  She was a strong, and beautiful woman on the inside.  No matter what was thrown her way she overcame it, and she was a role model for many females. 

 Work Cited

The Guerrilla Girls. The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. New York: Penguin, 1998

 Stechler, Amy. "The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2012. <http://www.pbs.org/weta/fridakahlo/worksofart/diegoandi.html>.