Description
About Frida Kahlo
Born in 1907, Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist, best known for her distinct self-portraits. After being severely injured in a bus accident, Kahlo turned to painting to explore her experiences of pain and went on to produce 55 self-portraits in her lifetime. Her work spans a variety of themes, including her illness, miscarriages, and her tumultuous relationship with fellow painter Diego Rivera, who she married in 1929. Her pictures are characterised by their raw subject matter, bold use of colour, and their links to her Mexican heritage. They are also distinguished by their explicit treatment of womanhood, its trials and its complexities: from her own experience of disability to the wider topics of menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth.
Today, Kahlo is widely regarded as an icon of the feminist and LGBT movement. An open bisexual, she challenged prescribed ideas of both sexuality and gender, refusing to pluck her heavy eyebrows or wax her moustache and armpit hair. In certain photographs, Kahlo is pictured dressed as a man, with a suit and scraped back hair. Her radical disregard of gender binaries continues today to highlight the pluralism of gender.
Kahlo is also renowned for her political engagement to the Communist party, and dreamt of “transforming the world into a classless one.” Despite her Jewish and Catholic background, she is widely believed to have been atheist, equally as controversial as her political standing. Kahlo was highly patriotic, and changed her birth date to 1910, in order that it would coincide with the Mexican Revolution. Her fierce commitment to both her cultural identity and her political beliefs are at the forefront of her powerful legacy.
Kahlo died in 1954, though her work and her message subsist in popular culture to this day. Around the world, she remains a symbol of self-liberation and female agency.
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