Frida Kahlo, whom we know with her words on kitchen products marketed with special series, on the facades of high-rise buildings, on street walls and on social media today, has a much deeper life story than the information we have.
Let’s take a look at her story, which distinguishes Frida Kahlo from other artists and fascinates the world with her life and art.
Frida’s life filled with pain began when she was just born and, in her own words, lasted for centuries.
Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo Calderon or Frida Kahlo as she is known to the whole world, was born in 1907 in Coyoacan, Mexico, the capital of Mexico, a North American country, as the daughter of a German father and a Spanish and Mexican mother.
Although the world knows herself as “Frida”, her name was actually “Frieda”, but she started using the name “Frida” by lowering the “e” sound from her German origin name to show her hatred for the Nazi events in her time.
Although some sources state that he may be Jewish because his father is a German immigrant; German sources declared that Frida’s father was not Jewish but Catholic.
According to a child, he not only experienced the most painful feeling, but also almost got through the pain: Peer terror.
Frida’s parents were not happily married and therefore she did not grow up in a wonderful family environment with her 3 sisters, but the bond of love between her and her father was extremely strong. The foundation of the torture that would begin in Frida’s childhood and last for centuries would begin when she turned 6, and she did not know anything yet.
When Frida turned six, she contracted polio. For this reason, his right leg is shorter and thinner than his left leg. This situation caused her to be called “Wooden Leg Frida” by her peers for years, mocked and lived as an introverted, asocial child.
Frida, who will live a life with a disability, went into a serious mental depression at a young age, but she continued her life by resisting life.
Frida, who stands out as a student whose every stage of her education life is full of success as well as suffering, is known as a lover of revolution.
- Frida Kahlo, her family, and her passion for Communism (she sometimes dresses like a man and doesn’t shave her eyebrows and mustache, as her father always wanted a son).
Although Frida lived an introverted period in her childhood, she had a very good education period and was interested in many arts, especially literature, in high school. During her boarding school years, she told everyone around her that her birth date was July 7, 1910 instead of July 6, 1907.
The reason Frida told her date of birth differently than she did was because of her commitment to the revolution. As a matter of fact, in an interview she gave later in her life, she used the phrase “my real birthday is modern Mexico’s birthday” for her date of birth.
Again, during his high school years, he joined the student groups of the Communist Party and assumed responsibilities there. Later, he set sail for a new education life, which we can describe as university education.
It is not known whether it is because of the pain he has suffered since childhood, his biggest dream was to become a doctor and relieve people’s pain.
The polio that Frida suffered from left her with severe pain in addition to the physical handicap it left in her leg, and there was almost no day that she didn’t use painkillers. Frida, who was also affected by her suffering, wanted to study medicine in order to help the suffering people.
Frida, who started her medical education in a high-level educational institution with a quota of 2000 people and where only 35 female students were entitled to pass the exams, was also shown as a very successful doctor candidate by her teachers. We say she was shown because she did not complete her medical education.
In the best years of her life, she went through another hell after polio, but this strong girl had no intention of dying easily.
Frida, who could not live the best years of her childhood due to polio, was a chirpy young girl despite all her disability in her youth, but the ordeals never left her.
Frida, who was sexually abused by a female teacher in the last days of her high school education, burying this incident inside her and looking forward with hope; She had taken the school bus with her boyfriend to return home, as she always does.
After the school bus collided with the tram, it turned into a life market. Many of Frida’s close friends died in this accident. He was mortally wounded as he saw his closest friends, whose bodies were dismembered, around him. The iron parts of the tram were stuck in Frida’s body.
There is no war lost: the unfortunate Frida fought once again despite the various whips of life and won this war after two years.
At the age of 18, in this fatal accident in which he lost the people he loved most, an iron was lodged in his hip and protruded from his pelvis. Frida, who had an intensive treatment process in the hospital for two months, had 32 surgeries according to the hospital records. In this accident, not only was iron stuck in his body, but many of his bones, including his spine, were also broken. After she survived the life-threatening situation, her treatment was continued at home due to her stable condition.
Frida, who is already disabled and struggling with pain, increased even more after this accident. She was treated as an inpatient at home for 2 years. In this process, she could not go out and she had to give up her medical education, which she wanted so much.
Frida, who was roasted and blended with an indescribable pain, started to give herself to painting with pain.
This new pain, on top of her difficult childhood and disabled life, had made Frida’s life even worse, and her parents advised her to take up painting to make her feel better.
He drew self-portraits (self-portraits) by looking at the mirror in the room where he was almost imprisoned for two years. He referred to this mirror as “the executioner of the days and nights of the best years of my life” years later. Famous painter Pablo Picasso showed Frida and praised Frida because she looks at her own face in this mirror every day, saying “we never know how to draw human faces like her”.
Frida, who survived the fatal accident with a disability for the second time, came out of the room she was imprisoned on her own steps after two years.
After the accident in 1925, Frida started walking in 1927 and once again won against life, but now her pain would be more than in previous years. However, this did not break her joy of life and she continued to paint.
Using her connections at school, Frida met with artists and politicians and attended meetings with many important people. Even Julio Antonio Mella, the founder of the Cuban Communist Party, was present at these meetings. He joined the Communist Party in Mexico in 1929, with both Mella’s influence and already his commitment to the revolution and responsibility for youth organizations during his school years.
In the Communist Party, he met Rivera, with whom he was to be married officially, and created new works as the fruit of this love.
During her party adventure, Frida met Diego Rivera, a painter like herself and known as “Mexican Michelangelo” by the art community due to her talents, and soon crowned this acquaintance with marriage. This marriage, which was the first for Frida, was the third marriage for Rivera and she would complete her life with four marriages by making another marriage after Frida.
The marriage of Frida and Rivera was expressed by many as the “marriage of the pigeon and the elephant” due to the physical differences of the couples.
The pain that followed her throughout her life did not leave Frida alone in her marriage life either…
- A painting by Frida after her failed childbirth attempts.
After getting married, the couple left the party and moved to the USA to devote more time to both their private life and art, and started a more organized life here. Although the couple wanted to have children, Frida first had to have an abortion during her first pregnancy due to health problems.
Frida, who became pregnant two more times after the abortion, had a miscarriage due to the physical scars left by the negative situations she lived for all this time, although she wanted so much. While her life continued with pain as always, she filed for divorce after being betrayed by her husband in this process.
Despite being a woman who has struggled with pain throughout her life, Frida, who is always full of life and “looking at the ground, heartbreaking” continues to surprise us.
- The painting on the right is for his wife, Rivera, and the painting on the left is for Trotsky. In fact, in the painting of Trotsky, on the paper in Frida’s hand, “With love to Trotsky” is written.
As strange as it may sound, Frida lived for a while with the Soviet leader and Stalin’s strongest rival, Leon Trotsky, after she broke up with her husband, but later ended this relationship because of Trotsky’s marriage.
Both Frida and Rivera got together after a while and got married again, but this time a different marriage awaited them. During this marriage, they both had extramarital affairs. Frida seemed to have learned to be both cheated and cheated, and she had most of her extramarital affairs with women.
Frida, who we can describe as the woman of pain, also raised many young people for art.
Having opened many exhibitions in the important cities of Europe, which attracted great attention, Frida, despite everything, gave training to young people in an art school for 10 years. While he was preparing murals and paintings for brands during the years when he had financial difficulties throughout his life, he could not please his customers as he reflected the inspirations of his soul instead of bespoke painting, and he ended this work in a short time.
No matter how much life steals from Frida; She always continued to produce, she set a great example for those who want to see the struggle.
During the years of her illness, Frida applied to become a member of the Communist Party, perhaps the true love of her life. His application was accepted and the joy of life with the revolutionary fire burning in him once again came to light.
Frida, who suffered incessantly from birth to death, left us thinking that she deserved an eternal life that she was waiting for with joy.
Frida began to live in a confinement to bed in 1954. A pulmonary embolism was now added to his increasingly severe pain, due to both the polio he had experienced since childhood and the damage of the fatal accident he had experienced during his university years.
Due to these pains, his right leg, which was gangrenous, was amputated upon the evaluation of the doctors. Frida, who added a lot to the world with both her art and her determination to live, died at the age of 47 due to “pulmonary embolism” according to her death report, and due to years of pain according to many people.
Medical death, suicidal according to suspicions, revolution according to his story!
Although a pulmonary embolism was blamed for Frida’s death, she allegedly took 11 doses of painkillers the night before she died, instead of 7 doses. This was considered as a kind of suicide due to his extraordinary pain, but this claim could not be proven because an autopsy was not performed.
Upon her will, Frida’s dead body was cremated and her only property, the Blue House, was donated to the state. Although it was not written in his will, the immortal works of art were inherited by all humanity.
The last thing he drew before he died was the death he so longed for…
There is a black angel drawing on the last page of Frida’s diary, which she kept regularly before she died in the hospital. This angel is thought to be the angel of death. Also under the drawing was she, “I await death with joy and wish never to return.”
The note Frida left in her diary before she died and the picture she drew when her leg was amputated:
- Espero alegre la salida… Y espero no volver jamás (awaiting death with joy and wishing never to return)
We can say that Frida lived a life with extraordinary suffering, both in her last article and in her sufferings, but she left behind 143 immortal works, 55 of which are self-portraits, and her life story is an example for all humanity.
If you want to see Frida Kahlo on the big screen:
Although we see Frida in many places in daily life, we recommend you to watch Frida, which was adapted for the big screen and won the OSCAR award in 2 categories, was released in 2002, and Salma Hayek played Frida Kahlo and also featured Geoffrey Rush.
No matter how much we suffer and no matter how many negative things come together, we wish that we can all face every negativity just like Frida Kahlo…
Note: You can find all of Frida Kahlo’s works and explanations about her works here and here.
Sources: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 /
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