Frida Kahlo
Presenter: Jeanne Jesernik
Archives and Collective Memory: Spring 2012
Dominican University
Frida Kahlo’s Family of Origin
Father
Guillermo Kahlo
[Wilhelm Kahl, a German-Jewish
expatriate, of Hungarian descent]
Professional Photographer
Atheist
Had epilepsy
Mother
Matilde Calderon
[Mexican, of Spanish Indian descent]
Ran the household
Devout Catholic
Encouraged Kahlo’s art
Encouraged Kahlo’s art
Matilde (1898-1951)
First wife Maria Cardena died giving
birth to third daughter. Second
daughter died at birth. Other two
girls sent to live in convent.
Adriana (1902-1968)
Frida (1907-1954)
Christina (1905-1964)
My Grandparents, My Parents, and I (Family Tree)
(1936)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Frida Kahlo : Her Childhood Revisited
Born in 1907 (not 1910 as she claimed) as Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y
Calderon in Coyoacán (now an affluent borough near Mexico City; Coyoacán is
Nahuatl for “Place of the Coyotes”). She was born three years before the Mexican
Revolution (1910-1920), which greatly impacted her life and work
Born in La Casa Azul (The Blue House) Lived there with her husband Diego
Rivera from 1929-1954. Kahlo died at home.
Born with Spina Bifida (Her doctor Leo Eloesser gave this diagnosis in 1930—a
fact largely ignored by biographers according to neurologist Valmantas Budrys) At
six years old contracted polio (muscular atrophy in her right leg)
At fifteen years old entered the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria in Mexico City: A
student body of 35 girls and 2,000 boys. She was a member of student political
activist group “Las Cachuchas” (the caps; named after their hats)
Kahlo and Diego Rivera met briefly while he was painting a mural at the school.
He was hired by the Secretario de Educación in support of ideals developed during
the Mexican Revolution (part of the Mexican mural renaissance that became known
as the Escuela de México: a mix of modern art and indigenous art that rejects
European abstract art)
La Casa Azul
Spanish colonial house that
Rivera donated to the
government in 1955
Unfinished portrait of Stalin
still “in situ” on easel in Kahlo’s
studio
Pre-Hispanic Jewelry collection
and colorful Tehuana costumes
Opened as a museum in 1958
 Poncho Villa, Leon Trotsky etc.
other famous residents of
Coyoacán
Las Cachuchas or Si Adelita
 (1927) Private Collection in
Mexico.
Cubist style painting—popular
at that time
Si Adelita the name of a
popular festival song in Mexico
Frida Kahlo : Her Adulthood Revisited
In 1925 Kahlo and Alejandro Gomez Arias (her fiancé) were in a near fatal bus
accident
Kahlo had multiple fractures in her back, right leg, pelvis, and right foot; a
dislodged shoulder; and was pierced with a metal rail that impaled her abdomen
and uterus
Kahlo had thirty operations—many were probably harmful at worst and not
necessary at best. In 1953 her right leg was amputated below the knee because of
gangrene. She suffered miscarriages, therapeutic abortions, and was frequently
confined to her bed over the course of her life
In 2012 a UCLA surgical pathologist “diagnosed” Kahlo as having had
Asherman’s syndrome (scar tissue in the uterus that prevents successful
childbirth). Art historians had been the only ones until this year to discuss why
Kahlo could not have a baby
Her mother (versus her father) installed a mirror above her bed so Kahlo could
paint herself. She also painted portraits of visitors. She began painting seriously
at this time—prior to this she was thought to be interested in medicine as a
career
Henry Ford Hospital or
The Flying Bed
(Detroit: 1932)
The Broken Column
(1944)
Without Hope
(1945)
Tree of Hope, Keep Firm
(1946)
(1946)
Kahlo often wore
plaster “corsets” and
steel braces to support
her spine
Communist hammer
and sickle motif
Most photos of Kahlo
released 50 years after
her death
Frida Kahlo : Her Marriages with Diego Rivera
 21 year old Kahlo meets Diego Rivera again through a common friend
Kahlo approaches Rivera at the Secretaria de Educación and asks for an
assessment of her art
Rivera supports her painting from this moment forward, without end
Kahlo was already a member of the Mexican Communist Party, but her
nationalist views diverged from the international concerns of the party. On and off
again membership with the party. She and Rivera rejoin in 1954
In 1929, they marry (Kahlo is 22 and Rivera is 43) They divorce in 1939 and
remarry in 1940. It is a tumultuous relationship with outside affairs (Kahlo’s are
with men and women; Rivera’s affairs include Kahlo’s sister Christina)
In 1930, they travel to the U.S. where Rivera is commissioned to paint murals in
San Francisco, Detroit, and New York
They return to Mexico in 1933 after Rockefeller has Man at the Crossroads
painted over
Kahlo’s Paintings while in the U.S.
Frida and Diego Rivera
(1931)
Kahlo reinvents herself
again with a Spanish
Colonial shawl and
dress
My Birth
(1932)
[Notes: Madonna owns
the original. Kahlo’s
mother died during the
period Kahlo was
painting this]
My Dress Hangs There
(1932)
A cynical depiction of
capitalism with her
traditional Tehuana
dress in the center
Diego Rivera’s Man, Controller of
the Universe (1934) @ Palacio de
Bellas Artes in Mexico City.
[Originally Man at the Crossroads
commissioned, and destroyed, by
Rockefeller because of Lenin image]
Depicts Trotsky’s view that society
will regulate human reproduction—
man controlling an ovulating ovary.
Frida Kahlo’s Moses: Nucleus of
Creation (1945) Private Collection.
[Interpretation of Sigmund Freud’s
book Moses the Man and Monotheistic
Religion]. Kahlo refutes Rivera’s view
and paints images of successful
fertilization. She conveys political and
social ideas of unrepressed reproductive
rights. The third-eye Diego (thought to
be symbolic of acuity) is portrayed as
the central image, the baby.
Kahlo the Self-Portrait Artist?
 “(Kahlo) moves away from traditional methods of portraiture, to those of
assemblage and juxtaposition”—sociologist Joanna Latimer on “in/dividuality”
 Simplistic “pictorial autobiography” replaced. “(Kahlo) produces a meaningful
way to situate herself” Lowe (biographer)-as a Mexican woman and artist, an
indigenista etc. Documentation of key moments in her life (Pre-Columbian!)
 My Nurse and I (1937) Olmec and Teotihuacan imagery (maize, fertility)
versus simple interpretation of “wet nurse” scene; and psychoanalytical
interpretation of Kahlo’s strained relationship with her ill mother
Kahlo the Surrealist?
Post WWI (e.g., Salvatore Dalí )
Andre Breton French author of
the Surrealist Manifesto claimed
Kahlo as one their own— “a ribbon
around a bomb”: he arranged her
1938 NY exhibit
The Little Deer (1946)
Kahlo’s most cited response:
“People thought I was a Surrealist.
That’s not right. I have never
painted my dreams. What I
represented was my own reality.”
Kahlo the Feminist?
Several claims to who rediscovered
Kahlo: 1970’s white American feminists
versus Chicano muralists in California
Theologian Paula Cooey—studies call
for multiple readings of Kahlo, beyond a
domestic and private sphere, ethnicity,
society, religion,& politics need to be
considered (e.g., how Kahlo as an atheist
uses religious symbols)
Self Portrait with Monkeys
(1943)
Revisionist Feminist Art History: any
woman who painted is now studied, since
women had once been systematically
excluded from art history
Kahlo the Mexican Nationalist?
Tehuana costume (long skirts and embroidered blouses) reflects Tehuantepec’s
matriarchal society and resistance to Aztec domination. In solidarity with
European Frida in The Two Fridas ( the bloody scene is symbolic of her disconnect
from Rivera)
Variety of “nationalisms” in post-Revolutionary Mexico. Kahlo’s folk art
(Retablo style—Latin American “oil on tin” religious devotional paintings)
Multilayered and flexible identities even evident in the naming of her work:
gives more than one name to many of her paintings (The Dream/The Bed;
Moses/Nucleus of Creation; The Earth Itself/My Nurse and so on)
Self-portrait On the Borderline (1932)
The Two Fridas (1939)
Kahlo: A National
Treasure
 Rivera established a trust—
controversially presided over by his
friend, lover, and patron, Dolores
Olmedo—to protect the Anahuacalli
and Frida Kahlo museums
 Diego asked “Lola” Olmedo not to open
certain spaces in the Casa Azul for a
lapse of fifteen years, which she
respected. Olmedo died in 2004
 The museum board opened the
previously closed off sections for the
centennial celebration of Frida Kahlo’s
birth in 2007
Museo Dolores Olmedo
Patino
In Mexico City
 There are now an additional 28,000
new documents, 5,800 photos, works,
drawings, engravings, pieces of
printed matter, and personal items,
including almost 300 garments from
Kahlo’s wardrobe; and earrings that
Picasso gave her, on display
Kahlo as Activist
 Diego Rivera and Frida
Kahlo in the May Day
Parade, Mexico City, May 1,
1929
 May Day in Mexico is
closely associated with the
Haymarket Affair (or
Haymarket Riot) of 1886 in
Chicago
 On May 1st 1886 U.S. labor
unions organized strikes in
several major cities and
demanded the standard of
having an eight hour work
day
 Tensions rose as strikers
harassed “scabs” who
crossed the picket lines
 On May 3rd Chicago police
fired into the crowd and
killed six McCormick
Harvesting Machine Co.
Plant workers
 Local anarchists called for a
meeting and a gathering the
next day, May 4th (NOTE: a
second sign was made and
distributed without the call
to arms)
 A pipe bomb was thrown at
police which led to a violent
and deadly riot
Kahlo and Trotsky
 Leon Trotsky and Natalia Sedova during
their asylum in Mexico granted by
President Cardenas who was said to be
working toward democratic conditions
 The Russian couple who opposed Stalin
had been exiled from Norway under
pressure from Moscow—Kahlo’s
admiration for Stalin conflicting?
 Trotsky was Kahlo’s lover for a brief
period while living at La Casa Azul from
1937 until 1939
 In 1940 Trotsky was assassinated in
Mexico City
Dedicated to Leon Trotsky
(1937)
 Kahlo and Rivera briefly suspected of
prior attempted assassination: Kahlo
jailed for two days; Rivera left to paint a
mural in San Francisco
1954
Guatemalan coup d'état
Kahlo’s last public appearance
before her death in 1954 was in
Mexico City protesting CIA
involvement in the coup that
overthrew the legal, reformist
government of Guatemala
Cold War anti-communist America
(Eisenhower Administration) fears
President Guzman’s land reforms
and supports The United Fruit
Company (UFC)
Guzman and followers fear
monopolization of their agricultural
lands by international corporations
such as UFC
Books and the Shaping of Collective Memories
Frida: A Biography of
Frida Kahlo
By Hayden Herrara
(main source of most
children’s books)
(1994; 2002; 2007)
The Diary of Frida
Kahlo
Introduction by
Carlos Fuentas
(1998)
Frida’s Fiestas: Recipes
and Reminiscences of
Life with Frida Kahlo
By Guadalupe Rivera
and Marie-Pierre Colle
(Lupe is Rivera’s
daughter from his
second marriage)
(1994)
Amor y Cohetes
(Love and Rockets)
By graphic novelist Jamie
Gilbert Mari Hernandez
(Gilbert Hernandez)
(2008)
Frida is one of the stories
within this book
How is Kahlo portrayed in
cinema? How do these
portrayals shape the collective
memory of Kahlo?
Frida (2002) FYI
filmed in Mexico, the U.S.,
and Canada.
directed by Julie Taymor
2003 Golden Globe Award
Six Academy Award
Nominations
Salma Hayek (producer too)
& Alfred Molina
Edward Norton (John D.
Rockefeller) uncredited for
rewrite of Rodrigo Garcia’s
original script
Hayek interview claims she
now has a Poncho Villa
moustache from shaving
Frida (2002)
Collective Amnesia?
Hayek- Frida not as “sufrida,
the victim, the martyr . . .
wonderful love affair with life.”
Deborah Shaw in Quarterly
Review of Film and Video: To
be a Stalinist in 1950 versus
2000 has different
understandings and meanings,
Thus, “historical Kahlo is
killed in this film and a new
easily digestible, fictional
Frida given life.” One that the
U.S. feels is a safe and
attractive transformation of
the “exotic other”
Kahlo and Trotsky “look alikes”
The Frida Cult/
Fridamania
 Cottage Industry at the
National Museum of
Women in the Arts
includes (Think female
Che Guevara!) . . .
Totebags, watches, mouse
pads, dolls, wall hangings,
books, pocketbook mirrors,
photo boxes, t-shirts etc.
“In Mexico, people are sick and tired of Frida . . . We don’t put Frida at the
level of a saint like she is in the U.S. and Europe. She was always the wife of
Diego Rivera. It’s definitely an American invention and a marketing thing. I
honestly think she’s overrated.” --Magda Carranza, a curator at the Centro
Cultural/Arte Contemporaneo in Mexico City (cited in Judd Tully’s ARTnews
journal article April, 1994)
Viva La Vida
(Long Live Life)
(1954)
Eight days before Kahlo died she painted
the words as a final touch to this painting
Challenging and Changing Collective Memories
2007 release and exhibition
of Frida Kahlo’s photographs