The famous and very strongly browed painter Frida Kahlo was born Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderón in Coyoacán, Mexico on July 6th, 1907. She is most famous for her self-portraits, and she has been celebrated nationally in her home country of Mexico for her work as well as by feminists of all ages for her depiction of women’s experiences and the female form. After Kahlo sustained several injuries from a traffic accident, at age sixteen she abandoned studying medicine in order to pursue a career in painting. During her three month period of immobilization, she began working on her now famous self-portraits. Her parents helped to accommodate her immobilization by providing her a special easel and oil paints and brushes. Throughout her lifetime she created 140 pieces, and around 50 of them are self-portraits. These pieces incorporate different symbolic images that incorporated pain from her personal life such as her tumultuous marriage, with fellow painter and activist Diego Rivera, her intense physical pain from her several injuries and disorders, and multiple miscarriages. Her biggest inspiration is noted to be indigenous Mexican culture, which is noted through her incorporation of vivid colors, symbolism, and more primitive style. She also liked to use Christian and Jewish themes, and she liked to combine the traditional Mexican themes with her more modern surrealist renderings.
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AuthorWritten by art students of North High School in Evansville, Indiana Archives
December 2013
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