Thoughts of My Life - Frida Kahlo
Happy 110th Birthday Frida
Not for Sale
24" x 24" Original Frida Kahlo Painting on Canvas
I wanted to have this finished by July 6th, Frida's 110th birthday but it
is a large painting and took longer than I thought. It is amazing how she is celebrated.
There are festivals going on all over the US and especially in California where they will
be celebrating her birthday for this entire month so I will be also with several more paintings.
I am especially happy about the way this one turned out and is the largest
I have painted Frida thus far. I love the huge Magnolias surrounding her. They were her
favorite flowers. Her signature large jewelry had to be included and I will mention
that the silver is metallic paint and looks great.
Are you wondering what Frida is thinking about?
Below are Frida's thoughts and a copy will be included
with the purchase of this
painting.
Frida Kahlo - Thoughts of My Life
My name is Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderon
I was born July 6, 1907 in Mexico City, Mexico. I was the seventh daughter of Guillermo Kahlo, a successful German photographer who emigrated to Mexico from Pforzheim, and of a Mexican- Indian mother. Matilde Calderon y Gonzalez. My father encouraged my interest in art, photography and archaeology. My mother was no so well educated and was also very religious.
At the age of 6, I suffered an attack of poliomyelitis which left me with a deformed leg. Exercise and determination helped me make a good recovery. At 14 I enrolled into one of Mexico’ s best schools hoping to forge a good education and become a medical doctor.
On September 17, 1925 I suffered a serious injury in a traffic accident in Mexico City and broke my spinal column and pelvis in three places as well as my collar bone and two ribs and a rod piercing my abdomen. My right leg already deformed from Polio was shattered and fractured in 11 places and my foot was dislocated.
I spent the next month in the hospital and another 3 months at home recuperating, followed by 32 operations during my lifetime. My father made a special easel for me so I could paint in bed. During my recovery “I painted many self portraits because am the person I know best.” My prolonged illness gave me the opportunity to rethink my life and become a painter in spite if all my discomfort and pain.
I met my future love and husband Diego Rivera when he painted a mural at my school in 1923. We met again on 1927 and began an affair. Although my mother objected to me dating Diego, mostly because of our age differences, he was 20 years older than me. She felt we looked awkward together as I was only 5’3” tall and 100 lbs and he weighed nearly 300 lbs and was 6’ tall. We were married in traditional Catholic ceremony in 1929.
Melancholia, illness, separation, divorce and re- marriage marked our relationship. Diego was a womanizer and our marriage was stormy. I was frustrated by our marriage so I had several affairs including with the revolutionary Leon Trotsky in 1938. My career as an artist was highly successful and took me around Mexico City, New York and Europe.
Diego and I divorced early 1940 and soon after my health deteriorated. My moderate to heavy drinking and chain smoking and a steady diet of candy exacerbated my infirmity. In the early 1930’s I developed an atrophic ulcer on my right foot and had several toes amputated and eventually lost my leg.
Diego and I reconciled and were re-married on his 54th birthday, December 1940 in San Francisco California. Following the amputation of my leg in 1953 I became a recluse and more deeply depressed. I and was loosing the will to live. I was found dead at home in Mexico City on July 13, 1954 from kidney failure and liver and heart failure. Some believe I committed suicide by taking an overdose of my pills. No-one will ever know accept me.