How Did Kahlo Influence Diego Rivera

In 1928, Kahlo joined the Communist Party at the recommendation of Italian-American photographer and leftist activist Tina Modotti, who introduced Rivera to Kahlo. In 1922, however, before Kahlo got to meet Diego through Modotti, in fact, she already met him by chance when he created a mural at the National Preparatory School (Kettenmann Andrea, 2002, p. 22). According to Rivera’s memoir, Kahlo was a plucky girl who suddenly showed him her paintings while he was painting a mural. Rivera, who noticed her talents, reinforced her commitment to art to help her build a career as an artist. Rivera’s ideological influence greatly affected Kahlo’s paintings. On August 21, 1929, 23-year-old Kahlo became the third wife of Diego Rivera , who was twenty-one

years older than her, against her family’s wishes. In her diary, Kahlo wrote that meeting Rivera was the second accident of her life. The first accident left her with physical pain, whereas Rivera caused her mental pain. She became close to him after he complimented her paintings and encouraged her to paint; in fact, he had a great influence on her paintings .
Rivera was temperamental, sensual, naughty with women, egotistic, epicurean, jealous, insecure, a pedagogue, and a bluffer; he was also an incarnation of love that sprang from power, passion, authority, and nigh-supernatural innocence. He confused artistic maturation with sexual maturity, and was determined to have everything in his hand, from fame in the world of art to women, honor, money, power, and all the wealth. Inside him was greed that supervened ambition. His greed and continued illicit affairs left Kahlo with a lasting scar throughout her life. His affair with Kahlo’s younger sister Cristina in 1932 ended their marriage. They divorced in 1939, but remarried a year after their divorce owing to Kahlo’s longing for him and his continued appeals. However, Rivera did not change, which persistently gave Kahlo misery (Herrera Hayden, 1983).
After 1950, Kahlo’s life became more difficult, brutal. She had six operations after contracting a bacterial infection while undergoing an operation at a British hospital. In 1950, two or more of her right toes had to be amputated. As her condition worsened, her lower right leg was amputated in 1953. Kahlo became exhausted even though Rivera stayed by her side and consoled her (Herrera Hayden, 1983). She mostly painted fruit still life in the early 1950s, probably because of her incapacity to go outside the house. Beginning in 1951, she was not able to move without a wheelchair and laid in bed all the time owing to continued pain. In 1953, Kahlo opened first solo exhibition in Mexico. She, however, attended the ceremony lying in bed.
In 1954, Kahlo’s health was seemingly improving. She, along with Rivera, fought for the spread of universal communism. She was poised to move toward the future of the new world of art. At that time, she painted her first and only revolutionary work, in which Marx and Stalin appear as guardians. On June 2, her pneumonia recurred when she got caught in a rain shower at a demonstration she attended with Rivera, an incident that brought her to the brink of death. On June 13, a week after she turned 47, Kahlo died in the presence of Rivera, the love of her life (Herrera Hayden, 1983).
Kahlo was active between the 1930s and 1940s.

During this period, the world was rocked by a socialist movement characterized by a counterattack against nonfigurative art and a reversion to figurative art, a change that enabled artists to deliver social messages clearly. Kahlo’s paintings started receiving global attention from the 1970s. Feminism in art at the time suggested that women’s physical characteristics were women’s own space, distinguished from men’s. Her paintings honestly and comprehensively expressed her personal experiences and emotions, to which only women could relate. Self-portrait was a recurring theme in her paintings, which depicted women as active observers of their inner being rather than as passive objects of men’s attraction. From this perspective, Kahlo’s pieces are extremely pioneering (Deffebach, 2015). The feminist movement provided opportunities for the discovery of more female artists in the world of art; this movement helped her paintings see the light of day. During the period when male chauvinism prevailed, Kahlo stood against conservative society with her strong character and personality; she strived to create a new era and tread the path of a pioneer. In this respect, Kahlo was an artist who had great influence on improving women’s social

status.