Tragedy and Triumph: Frida Kahlo's Life Journey

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Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist best known for her self portraits. She was born in Coyoacán, Mexico City, Mexico. She was born to parents Matilde Calderon y Gonzalez and Guillermo Kahlo. She lived from 1907 to 1954. She was part of the Mexican Communist Party. Kahlo had several tragic incidents occur during her lifetime. At around the age of 6, she contracted polio. The disease left her with a damaged right leg and foot. She went to school at the National Preparatory school, where she met Alejandro Gomez Arias. While traveling together on a bus, it collided with a street car. The incident left her with serious injuries, including getting impaled with a steel handrail, and suffered fractures to her spine and pelvis, and had to undergo several …show more content…

In 1928, Kahlo began her relationship with Diego Rivera, who encouraged her artwork. She had incorporated graphic elements of surrealism into her artwork. They led generally separately different lives. During their marriage Diego had cheated on Kahlo several times, including with her sister Cristina. She then experienced more heartbreak when she miscarried in 1934. They had divorced in 1939. but later remarried the next year and were married until her death. In 1938, Kahlo befriended one of the primary figures in surrealistic art, Andre Breton. The next year, she also befriended such artists as Marcel Duchamp and Pablo Picasso. It was during this time that she had divorced Rivera.
Because of her divorce, she painted one of her most famous artworks, “The Two Fridas”. The painting displays two versions of herself, with her hearts exposed. It is believed that this painting is meant to represent both the “loved” and “unloved” versions of herself. It can also be interpreted as the person she was, and the person she then became.

One of Kahlo’s deeper paintings, “Henry Ford Hospital”, tells the story of her tragic second miscarriage. The painting displays her laying in a hospital bed with several items floating around her. It is representative of her longing to have a

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