Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo (July 6, 1907 – July 13, 1954) was born in Coyoacán, Mexico City, and is considered one of Mexico’s greatest artists. She began painting after she was severely injured in a bus accident. Kahlo later became politically active and married fellow communist artist Diego Rivera in 1929. She exhibited her paintings in Paris and Mexico before her death in 1954.

She is a famous Mexican painter who is best known for her self-portraits. Frida is now regarded as one of the most significant artists of the twentieth century. "I'll paint myself," said Frida Kahlo, "because I am so often alone, because I am the subject I know best."

Kahlo's life began and ended in Coyoacan, Mexico City, in her home known as the Blue House (Casa Azul). Her work has been celebrated in Mexico as emblematic of national and indigenous tradition and by feminists for its uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form.

Mexican culture and Amerindian cultural tradition are important in her work, which has been sometimes characterized as naïve art or folk art. Her work has also been described as surrealist, and in 1938 André Breton, principal initiator of the surrealist movement, described Kahlo's art as a "ribbon around a bomb". Frida rejected the "surrealist" label; she believed that her work reflected more of her reality than her dreams.

Kahlo had a volatile marriage with the famous Mexican artist Diego Rivera. She suffered lifelong health problems, many caused by a traffic accident she survived as a teenager. Recovering from her injuries isolated her from other people, and this isolation influenced her works, many of which are self-portraits of one sort or another. Kahlo has stated, "I was born a bitch. I was born a painter." And one of her most famous quotes is: ''I don't need feet, I've got wings to fly''.

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