Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), she of the unibrow, is a Mexican painter best known for her unforgettable self-portraits. She was the wife of Diego Rivera, another famous Mexican artist.
European painters saw her as a surrealist. She did not. She was firmly rooted in Mexican folk art, painting what she felt. If anything, she was closer to the magic realism of Latin American writers.
Her father was Jewish. He came to Mexico from Germany at a time of growing anti-Semiticism in Europe. Her mother was Mexican, part Spanish and part Indian (native American). Kahlo was proud to be Mexican, proud of her Indian roots. She grew up in a blue house in Coyoacan, then a suburb of Mexico City.
At age six she got polio and was sick for a long time. Stuck in bed, she began to paint. She recovered but walked with a limp. At school they called her Frida Kahlo Peg Leg.
Her father taught her painting and photography. He was a photographer who took portrait pictures. He painted over them to them to make them look better. She helped him.
She went to one of the best schools in Mexico City. There she met Diego Rivera, who was doing a mural. He was fat and ugly – she thought he looked like a frog. Yet he had a way with women. She fell madly in love.
At age 18, on the way home from school, her bus hit a tram. Much of her body was crushed. Her back was broken in several places. A metal railing went right through her. Most would have died. She lived. But she would live in constant pain for the rest of her life. Sometimes she could not even walk. She had some 30 operations, but there was little doctors could do.
She married Rivera. Her mother was against it: he was fat, a communist and, besides, together they looked like an elephant and a dove.
In time both were unfaithful. She took both male and female lovers. like Leon Trotsky and Georgia O’Keeffe. Worst was when he had an affair with her younger sister! But despite all that, they always came back together. Even in divorce they remarried.
She could not live without him – even when she had her own money, even when they no longer slept together. When he divorced her, she painted herself bleeding, her heart cut in half, holding hands with – the Frida that Diego once loved.
But worse than the pain in her body or even Rivera’s womanizing, was the pain of not being able to have children. In 1932 when they were in Detroit, she had a miscarriage at the Henry Ford Hospital.
They were in the US in the early 1930s. It made her homesick for Mexico. Even though she was a communist, she still could not believe how heartless the rich in New York were about the poor.
About 55 of her paintings are self-portraits. It was like she was using painting as a mirror – of her heart.
See also:
Looking at her painting I don’t envision her as a good looking woman.
Frida was told she could not have kids but seemed to get pregnant no problem. She was told she had to terminate one of those kids.
http://www.fridakahlofans.com/chronologyenglish.html
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I loved that movie about her. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007AFB868/ref=atv_feed_catalog?ref_=imdbref_tt_pv_vi_aiv_1&tag=imdbtag_tt_pv_vi_aiv-20
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Linda Keres Carter
I love that movie too. It was one of the first movies that I watched when my husband and I first moved into our house. I loved her free spirit. She just tickled my fancy to know she had affairs with men and women.
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At least not until you see pictures of her in real life. I’m guessing, but it seems like what she felt were the least desirable parts of her appearance (in her mind) are exaggerated in her paintings.
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@Mark
I must say I did not think of it in that way. Considering that much of her painting depicted what she felt or how she saw herself, then I believe that to be true.
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@sharinalr See, it’s funny, but I think she was attractive but in an unconventional way. In the same way I think Barbara Streisand is beautiful and the same way I think a lot of people feel Jennifer Grey was before she got the nose job. Frida is certainly far better looking than say, Tori Spelling or Maggie Gyllenhal or Rosie Perez (whom I find to be ugly). But as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, this is just my opinion. Kahlo has that certain something Charisma perhaps? yhat makes her plain looks something extraordinary and I love the unique way she dressed, too. She was her own body of art and I admire that.
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Selma Hayek and Alfred Molina killed it as Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Come to think of it they were an odd looking pair. I remember watching the film and thinking why is she attracted to him he’s fat and unappealing. But Hayek and Molina showed how passionate they were and how much they loved each other. Even though they had numerous affairs. I remember Ashley Judd being in this film i think she was the Georgia O’Keef character and in the film Josephine Baker was featured as one of her many lovers. They were as Ricky Marin says in his title song. “Living Lavida Loca.” They had a wild and crazy and colorful life. Great post.
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*Ricky Martin* ^^^
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“It was like she weas using painting as a mirror of her heart.” Agreed it was like reading a diary of her life.
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She did some good artwork, as did her husband. I will give them that.
However, I don’t agree with romanticizing her life. Facsists aren’t cute, but for some reason Communists are. Nevermind that Communism was responsible for many more deaths (hundreds of millions in Communist countries like the USSR, China and Cambodia–and without Communists the Nazis would never have come to power) than Fascism.
History is written by the victors .. and finally it seems the Communists have won, as they have succeeded in establishing the doctrine of “equalism” as the dominant State religion while promoting their own elite. Ms. Kahlo was mostly white, half YKW, with rotten Communist dogma (even bangin’ with one of the arch-Commies, Mr. Trotsky) and yet she’s somehow the arch-paragon of Native American virtue. Nice how that works.
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@Abagond
This on Wikipedia During Kahlo’s lifetime and subsequently, media reports stated that her father was Jewish.However, genealogical research indicates that her father was not of Jewish heritage, but was from a Lutheran family.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frida_Kahlo)
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Great post. I love Kahlo’s life story and her work. In fact along with Magritte, and Degas (odd combination, I know) she’s one of my favourite artists. I cannot imagine more candid and soul-baring work than hers.
I thought Salma Hayek and Al Molina did a great job in the movie. Would you believe that until that movie came out I had never heard of Frida Kahlo?
Biff is another critic with the typical American/British simplistic and disingenuous line in anti-communist propaganda.
To say that she did some good artwork and then to dismiss Communism is stupid. Kahlo’s work was constantly influenced by her ideology.
Where Biff and others who know little of the Communism go wrong is to think that it is simply the scary, grey regimentation they’ve seen in Russia, China, N. Korea etc. Communism is not one thing. Unfortunately, the kind of Communism that has had the most post-revolutionary practical outings has been Marxist/Marxist-Leninist top-down Communism. Statist Communism that has simply replaced an oppressive capitalist plutocracy with an oppressive Marxist oligarchy. People in power at the top who immediately do whatever they consider necessary to secure their privileged positions (and, as an afterthought, to secure the revolution).
The principles of Communism are indeed cute and cuddly: equality, an end to oppression by the rich. Unfortunately, Marx and Engels have been the widest influences rather than real progressive thinkers like Bakunin and Kropotkin.
Kropotkin describes an Anarchist Communism that allows for no Stalins, no Maos, no Pol Pots, No Castros and no Kims. Power and policy originate with the people of a community by genuine grass-roots democracy. There are no positions of power and no authority without the consent of the people. There are no rich and no hoarders of land and resources.
The people collectively own the means to produce and distribute all the necessities and luxuries needed by a society. All goods and services are free. People would work shorter hours than they currently do under capitalist wage-slavery. Money is obsolete.
Contrary to popular myth, people are able to own personal property, they are allowed to defend themselves.
Before you think you know Communism, think again.
This kind of utopian dream is what motivates people like Kahlo and Rivera (and the Black Panthers). Unfortunately, they usually know only of Marxism and so set off along the road to ruin instead.
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buddhuu, you’re brilliant. Maybe everyone has just been doing communism wrong for the last 100 years. Let’s try again! Maybe we’ll get Utopia at last! “Anarchist Communism” sounds great! No way that could result in billions of deaths worldwide..
Same thing with affirmative action. We’ve been doing it wrong for the last few decades, and that’s why there has been very little progress. We just need to practice for another few hundred years, then I’m sure we’ll get it right and everyone will be equal at last!
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biff:
Same thing with affirmative action. We’ve been doing it wrong for the last few decades, and that’s why there has been very little progress. We just need to practice for another few hundred years, then I’m sure we’ll get it right and everyone will be equal at last!
Is there something wrong with people all being equal?
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Kiwi:
His response is weird – I dont think that AA has been going for decades, maybe the last 15 years and put in to practice the last 10 if that.
Whats wrong with people trying to address inequality?
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It took hundreds of years to establish inequality, I expect it to take time to reverse it…but hopefully not that long but I do think at least one generation will have to die out first though.
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I expect you’re right, but the more of the groundwork we do now, the quicker someone, sooner or later, will benefit. The reason I promote the ideology I summarised above is because I think that people who study it will come to recognise that it would work and be better for everyone.
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Apologies, Omnipresent. I keep forgetting to “@” people in my comments.
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buddhuu:
I expect you’re right, but the more of the groundwork we do now, the quicker someone, sooner or later, will benefit
Agreed. It is responses like Biffs above that show me why it is taking its time to take hold and gain momentum.
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poetess
For me it appears that she had a mustache, so it throws me off a bit. Though it is fair to say she had a look all of her own.
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I loveeeee Frida, sO brilliant and unique-what a once in a lifetime artist!!!
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Wish they still had Frida on Netflix streaming….
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“Fat and ugly”?? 😀
Very american take on a very complicated relationship between two very fiery and principled artists.
What is the biggest sex organ in human body? Your brain. It looks the same in all of us.
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Picasso was no beach boy himself either and had plenty of women, even before he became a super star.
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@Sam
I don’t think people were so superficial back then. I think the brain the chemistry were all people wanted and needed.
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[…] Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), she of the unibrow, is a Mexican painter best known for her unforgettable self-portraits. She was the wife of Diego Rivera, another famous Mexican artist. European painters… […]
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[…] Source: abagond.wordpress.com […]
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Whenever I see Concha Buika she reminds me of an African Frida Kahlo.
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Communism is America’s “monster under the bed.”
Which begs two questions:
1) Do you believe inequality to be the natural state of things?
2) Do you believe that the target audience of Affirmative Action to be unworthy of equality due to their seeming incapability to achieve it without AA?
It’s easy to answer 1) in the affirmative if you happen to be the prototypical white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, as you know deep down that you have plenty to lose otherwise. Answering 2) in the affirmative is a bit harder unless you dig up every codeword in the book to do just that, as only those stereotypical “Mississippi Burning” bigots would come out and say what they truly feel on the issue.
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@Jadapoo1: In regards to Concha Buika: I can see the similarities seeing how they are both free spirits and very eccentric. One artist expresses her art through music and the other through painting. Concha Buika like Frida Kahlo both have passion for life and they are not inhibited.
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When we selected our dog at the humane society, she had a tag on her collar inscribed with the name “Frida”. So naturally we named her “Frida Collar”.
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I found a few photographs of Frida. She looks much better than what she painted her self as.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Frida_Kahlo_Diego_Rivera_1932.jpg)
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Mack I apologize for putting @ Mark instead of @ Mack.
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Mack:
These are good questions. Let me give you my answers.
“1) Do you believe inequality to be the natural state of things?”
This depends on how you define equality. One some abstract level, humans all have a certain dignity, being made in the form of their Creator. They share many common traits, two eyes, ears, a mouth, etc.
However, if you look through human history, you could not fail to observe vast inequalities both between different peoples and even within the same group of people.
What if I asked if all dogs are naturally equal? Maybe I would want to say yes, but I observe that most greyhounds are faster than most bulldogs, and I observe that most collies are more intelligent than most miniature poodles. Is it wrong for me to observe this difference?
“2) Do you believe that the target audience of Affirmative Action to be unworthy of equality due to their seeming incapability to achieve it without AA?”
Should I give bulldogs head starts in footraces with the greyhounds? Would that make the bulldog “equal” to the greyhound? Is the bulldog “unworthy” of being able to run as fast as the greyhound? It’s a question that doesn’t make a lot of sense, because it’s not about “worth”.
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@ Sharina
I don’t think people were so superficial back then. I think the brain the chemistry were all people wanted and needed.
I’m with the book of Ecclesiastes: “There is nothing new under the sun.”
I don’t know that people are more superficial (with looks and matters of the heart) now vs. back then. Sometimes there seem to be differences and sometimes things seem ever so basic and all the same.
Massive charisma and little looks can, perhaps, go further than many imagine.
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@ Legion
Hey Legion. Very glad that you commented on this thread.
“Massive charisma and little looks can, perhaps, go further than many imagine.”—I feel like in our society today charisma does not go as far as perhaps it should or did in the past. I look at Frida with her light but very visible mustache and her uni-brow and I see how she was able to attract men regardless of this. Apply that to this day and age and she would likely end up a spinster. I think about even women that some will deem ugly still are dressed sharp and bringing attention to any “assets” they have. Their charisma ends up coming in second to what men can visually see.
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Why is it that you fail to mention what an abusive piece of shit Diego Rivera was?
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Her father wasn’t Jewish, he was German Lutheran. He left Germany to avoid economic debt.
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