Categories: People

Frida Kahlo – One of the Most Influential Artists of the Twentieth Century

Frida Kahlo has been revered as on of the most influential twentieth-century artist of the Americas. Her personal and at times political paintings filled with her own emotional trials of life’s joys and pains has enlightened a whole movement of female artists. Her art has been said to be a symbol of female struggle. She is adored by American and Mexican and is often regarded as an iconic female artist. She may be one of the first twentieth century fine artists to paint in detail about childbirth, miscarriages and other women’s issues. Her art is characterized as ego-centric but she was simply painting and sculpting about her own life experiences as a person and a woman.

At the age of 18, Kahlo was nearly killed in a horrible bus accident which left her a semi-invalid. Her spine, pelvis, foot, and collar bone were all broken in several places- a metal hand rail pierced through her pelvis. Kahlo was not expected to live. She became an artist through her accident. She was in route to become a doctor being one of the 35 girls in her class among 2000 students at the prestigious National Preparatory School.

In her life time she underwent at least 30 operations. She was determined to succeed and decided to become a painter to make money for herself and her family. She grew up during a great time of when the Mexican Revolution was unfolding and many of her paintings indicate the times.

She was married and divorced and then married again to another Mexican artist by the name of Diego Rivera. The marriage is said to be very tumultuous, but art was there common ground and in the end were life long companion. He believed she was the greatest Mexican artist of her generation and thought very highly of her work.

Some of her best work would have to be:

-The Bus, 1929
-Two Nudes in the Jungle, 1939
-Flower of Life, 1944
-Moses, or the Seed of Creation, 1945
-The Little Deer, 1946
-The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), Diego, Me and Senor Xolotl, 1949
-A Few Small Nips, 1935
-My Dress Hangs There, 1933
-Self Portrait with Loose Hair, 1947
-Dona Rosita Morillo, 1944
-Self-Portrait with Monkey, 1938
-Self-Portrait, ‘Very Ugly’, 1933

There have been numerous books written in her honor along with a movie that starred Selma Hyak. She was born in 1907 and died in 1954.