Frida and Diego, the art of revolution
Frida Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907 in Coyoacán, a neighborhood in southern Mexico City. She was the daughter of Matilde Calderón, a mixed-race woman with indigenous and Spanish origins, and Guillermo Kahlo, a German photographer who had emigrated to Mexico in 1891. Nineteen years separated her from Diego Rivera, a young painter who had just graduated from the National School of Fine Arts in San Carlos, where he had studied with recognized masters. The year Frida was born, Diego won a state scholarship and flew to Europe, where he would spend most of the next fourteen years. After studying in Spain, he settled in Paris, where he frequented a group of artists based in Montmartre, including Modigliani and Picasso. While the young Diego was being exposed to the works of those who would leave their mark on his own, revolution broke out in Mexico. In 1910, Francisco Madero launched a call for general insurrection, inaugurating the revolution. Frida and her family witnessed the popular uprising against Porfirio Díaz, who had ruled the country as dictator since 1876, and the arrival in Mexico City in 1914 of the revolutionaries Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata. Frida was only a child at the time, and Diego was in Europe, but both artists were profoundly affected by this event, and remained committed to the ideal of social justice throughout their lives. When Diego returned to Mexico in 1921, the struggle was over, but the revolution continued to transform the country. Frida, who dreamed of becoming a doctor, entered the prestigious Escuela Nacional Preparatoria in 1922, where there were only 35 women. It was here that she first met Diego, who had been commissioned to paint a mural, La Creación, on one of the walls of the school, located in the Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso. Diego belongs to a group of revolutionary artists called El Sindicato Revolucionario de Obreros Técnicos, Pintores y Escultores, and is one of the leaders of muralism, alongside Alfredo Siquieros and Gabriel Orozco. Supported by the Mexican state, notably by Education Minister José Vasconcelos, this artistic movement was one of the continuators of the revolution. Diego was invited to paint the walls of public buildings throughout the city, such as the Secretaría de Educación pública. He abandoned what he had learned in Europe to explore typically Mexican concepts and themes, becoming one of the founders of the Mexican school. The muralists' works tell the story of humanity on the move, and retrace Mexico's rich history (as at the Palacio de Cortés in Cuernavaca, or at the Palacio Nacional with his masterpiece
Epopeya del pueblo mexicano, and much later his Sueño de una tarde dominical en la Alameda central, which adorns the
Museo Mural de Diego Rivera), from indigenous traditions to the uprising of the working classes during the revolution, focusing on populations and themes hitherto neglected by artists. Diego painted some of his most emblematic frescoes in the capital, although he also devoted himself to developing an impressive collection of easel works. This new, authentically Mexican voice of muralism was sympathetic to socialism. Diego joined the Communist Party on his return to Mexico.
The meeting
In 1925, Frida's life was turned upside down when she was involved in a tragic traffic accident. The bus that was taking her home from her classes at the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria swerved and hit a tram. The collision claimed several lives and left her with irreversible physical damage. Frida, who already had a leg disability after contracting polio at the age of 6, narrowly escaped death. Her spine, ribs and leg were broken, and her pelvic cavity was pierced by a metal bar. She learned that she would never be able to have children because of her pelvis, which was fractured in three places. Until her death, pain was part of her daily life and her health only deteriorated, despite the thirty or so major operations she had to undergo. During the months of bed rest following the accident, Frida's only objects of contemplation were her reflection in the mirror her parents had installed above her bed, and the sky, whose blue she could see through the small window in her room. She began to paint self-portraits, portraits of her relatives and still lifes on small canvases, which allowed her to draw while lying down. After her convalescence, when her health allowed her to leave the Casa Azul, her family home in Coyoacán, now a museum, Frida saw that the artistic and cultural renaissance triggered by the 1910 revolution was still in full swing. While Mexico remained rooted in tradition, the capital represented progress and modernity. Mexico City became a Mecca for artists and reformers. At 21, Frida surrounded herself with a community of Marxists, communists, anti-imperialists, artists, students and political exiles. She joined the Young Communist League and discovered the pleasure of debate and long conversations about art, politics and culture. It was in this context that she met Diego again, who had become one of the most influential artists in Mexico. Frida shows him her paintings to get his opinion, and Diego immediately sees talent in this young woman, whose work is the opposite of his own. Where Diego's frescoes are large, symbolic and carried by an epic breath, Frida's paintings are intimate, personal and often very small. The epic revision of Mexican history does not interest Frida, whose paintings represent above all her childhood memories, her relatives, Mexican folklore, and sometimes Catholic images. Very quickly, the mutual admiration between the accomplished painter and the budding artist evolved into a feeling of love, and they married in 1929. However, their alliance was not very traditional: in addition to their age difference, Diego had several affairs during the first year of their marriage and Frida also led a promiscuous life a little later. Despite the infidelities and difficulties of the couple, who separated several times, Frida and Diego could not live without each other and remained linked until death.
From Rockefeller to Trotsky
Throughout the 1920s, Diego's fame grew as his frescoes, commissioned by the public, recounted the history of the Mexican people. This fabulist giant of epic proportions was first interested in the physical and material development of man, and the effects of technological progress on him. He was fascinated by the history and future of humanity: the industrial revolution raised the question of the relationship between man and machine, and the workers' struggle became a privileged theme for him as capitalism was consolidating. From 1930 onwards, the ashes of the revolution were cold and reactionary measures were put in place in Mexico. Communists were thrown in jail, socialists were frowned upon, and artists fled. This was the moment that Frida and Diego chose to leave the country. The idea of creating revolutionary art in the kingdom of capitalism appealed to Diego: he flew with Frida to the United States, first to San Francisco and then to Detroit, at the invitation of Henry Ford, where he painted a series of murals on the theme of modern industry. The muralist was also commissioned by the Rockefeller family, although this latter collaboration never saw the light of day due to deep ideological differences. El Hombre controlador del universo, which can be seen in the Palacio de Bellas Artes, is a remake of this unfinished fresco, which was destroyed because it depicted Lenin guiding a crowd of workers. In 1931, Diego was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. During this time, Frida, who had no fame and did not consider herself an artist, suffered one of her many miscarriages. It was here in Detroit that she discovered that she could use painting as an outlet for her pain. She painted Henry Ford Hospital, in which she depicts herself on a hospital bed, holding her belly and lying in bloody sheets, her dead fetus escaping from her by a red thread. This was the first painting in which she depicted blood, but it would not be the last. This event traumatized her and transformed her, both psychologically and artistically. This work is part of the important collection of the Dolores Olmedo Patiño Museum dedicated to these two artists.
Frida takes flight
Back in Mexico City, Frida and Diego settled in San Angel, in a house designed by the architect Juan O'Gorman. The house, now transformed into a museum, is composed of two buildings connected by a footbridge, one housing Frida's quarters and studio, the other Diego's. The atmosphere within the couple is not very good, especially since Frida has just experienced her umpteenth miscarriage. She now considers fidelity to be a bourgeois virtue and, like Diego, leads a very promiscuous life. However, when she discovers that he is having an affair with her youngest sister, Cristina, she cannot stand it. She leaves the house in San Angel and moves into an apartment in the capital. She cuts her long hair, usually adorned with flowers, and abandons the traditional Mexican clothes that Diego loves so much. Despite the difficulties encountered by the couple, the separation was short-lived. At the end of 1935, Frida returned to the marital home. Reconciled, Frida and Diego nevertheless decided by mutual agreement that their relationship could not be subject to the traditional constraints of marriage. That same year, with the election of General Lázaro Cárdenas as president, Mexico turned the page on the repressive regime of his predecessor and once again became a haven for socialists. Many saw communism as a way to reinvigorate the reforms of the revolution. Diego and Frida's house became a meeting place for an international intelligentsia who believed that Mexico would follow the path of Russia. Many artists in Mexico City supported the Bolsheviks and dreamed of an uprising against the wealthy classes. Diego used his influence to convince President Cárdenas to welcome Leon Trotsky, who was granted political asylum in 1937. The Russian revolutionary whom Stalin sought to have assassinated moved into the Casa Azul alongside Guillermo Kahlo, Frida's father. He spent two years there, before Frida began a relationship with him. He then moved to a house a little further away, where he was murdered in 1940. In 1937, Frida, who had stopped painting since her separation from Diego, began to paint again. She produced a dozen paintings, which she doubted would be of any interest to anyone because they dealt with themes that were personal to her. However, urged on by Diego, she sent four of her paintings to the Galería de Arte, including Mis abuelos, mis padres y yo, which were exhibited as part of an exhibition devoted to several artists. The feedback was positive and Frida's work was noticed by Julien Levy, an American art dealer. Enthused, Levy offered to show some of her work in his New York gallery, which she immediately accepted.
Paris and the Surrealists
Frida's talent was then noticed by André Breton, the pope of surrealism who had come to Mexico with his wife to meet Trotsky. He described her works as surrealist, which she refuted all her life. In reality, Frida Kahlo's painting style is quite difficult to define. She mixed several styles to paint her reality and was interested in themes often neglected by artists. She represents intimacy, suffering and sometimes paints in a very raw, anatomical way, with nevertheless a dreamlike dimension. Of the 143 paintings she has done, 55 represent her. Little by little, the woman who had lived in the shadow of the great Diego Rivera for so long became emancipated and assertive in her paintings as in her life as a woman. Frida returned to New York, this time without Diego, to attend an exhibition of her work in Julien Levy's gallery, and was then invited to Paris by Breton. She was treated as an artist in her own right and, although she couldn't stand them, she hung out with the Surrealists, who she felt spent hours remaking the world in cafés. In Paris, wherever she went, she became the center of attention, with her traditional Tehuana dresses and her imposing jewelry. Seventeen of her works were exhibited in an exhibition on Mexico at the surrealist Pierre Cole Gallery. Only one of her paintings finds a buyer: the Louvre buys her El Marco, a self-portrait that becomes the museum's first Mexican painting of contemporary art. Exhausted by her stay in France and by her numerous trips, which were detrimental to her already fragile health, Frida returned to Mexico in 1939. Her relationship with Diego deteriorated to the point where he eventually asked for a divorce. Frida suffered and painted a lot, especially her painting The Two Fridas, which can be seen at the Museo de Arte Moderno. But the two artists did not remain separated for very long: the following year, Diego agreed once again to marry Frida, on condition that intimate relations be excluded from the marriage and that Frida pay half the couple's expenses. In 1941, after the death of Guillermo Kahlo, Frida and Diego moved into Casa Azul. Far from finding peace, the couple went through another crisis a few years later, when Diego wanted to leave her to settle down with the actress Maria Felix, with whom he said he was madly in love. In 1949, he portrayed her in a painting, La Doña Maria Felix, in which she appeared scantily clad. Frida warned the press, and the Mexican public, very much in favour of Catholic values, immediately sided with her. To save her career, Maria Felix puts an end to her affair with Diego, who will finally stay at Frida's side.
Viva la Vida
From 1950 onwards, Frida's health declined at an alarming rate. She suffered greatly and sank into depression. In a small notebook, she shared her emotions, drew sketches and wrote poems for Diego. That year, she underwent seven spinal operations, wore cumbersome metal corsets and spent most of her time bedridden. In the space of two years, she produced some fifteen paintings, mainly still lifes of fruit and vegetables arranged on her bedside table. Seeing her near death, her friend Lola Alvarez Bravo decided to organize an exhibition to honor her work at the Galería de Arte Contemporáneo. A recognized artist in the United States and Europe, Frida had never had the right to a solo exhibition in her own country. The exhibition in her honor runs from April 13 to 27, 1953. Her doctor said she was too weak to attend, but Frida insisted: her bed was set up in the middle of the gallery and she was taken there on a stretcher on opening night. Her presence made a strong impression and, for many, Frida herself became part of the exhibition. The last months of the artist's life were far from happy: her right foot was amputated because of gangrene, and she was addicted to painkillers and alcohol. She died of pneumonia on July 16, 1954, at the age of 47, in the house where she was born. Diego was at her side. Frida's last painting depicts cut-up watermelons and bears the inscription "Viva la vida". In 1957, Diego also painted his last picture, a few months before his death. He called it Las Sandías (The Watermelons). Frida Kahlo's influence continued to grow after her death. Over the years, she went from being a little-known artist to a national treasure, becoming a key figure in pop-culture, a source of inspiration in the fashion world and a feminist icon embraced by the media, until she eclipsed Diego Rivera, her giant husband forever in her shadow.
