FRIDA KAHLO: MEXICAN IDENTITY AGAINST COLONIALISM

Tina Picotes, our expert in painting, talks about Frida Kahlo in the anniversary of her birth.

Frida Kahlo de Rivera or Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón (July 6, 1907-July 13, 1954) was a Mexican painter, who mostly painted self-portraits. Inspired by Mexican popular culture, she employed a naïve folk art style to explore questions of identity, postcolonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society.

Her paintings often had strong autobiographical elements and mixed realism with fantasy. In addition to belonging to the post-revolutionary Mexicanidad movement, which sought to define a Mexican identity, Kahlo has been described as a Surrealist or magical realist. Her work has been celebrated internationally as emblematic of Mexican national and indigenous traditions, and by feminists for what is seen as its uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form.

More information: Frida Kahlo

Born to a German father and a mestiza mother, Kahlo spent most of her childhood and adult life at her family home, La Casa Azul, in Coyoacán. She was left disabled by polio as a child, and at the age of eighteen was seriously injured in a traffic accident, which caused her pain and medical problems for the rest of her life. Prior to the accident, she had been a promising student headed for medical school, but in the aftermath had to abandon higher education. 

Tina Picotes visits La Casa Azul in Coyoacán

Although art had been her hobby throughout her childhood, Kahlo began to entertain the idea of becoming an artist during her long recovery. She was also interested in politics and in 1927 joined the Mexican Communist Party. 

Through the Party, she met the celebrated muralist Diego Rivera. They were married in 1928, and remained a couple until Kahlo's death. The relationship was volatile due to both having extramarital affairs; they divorced in 1940, but remarried the following year.

Similarly to many other Mexican women artists and intellectuals at the time, Kahlo also began wearing traditional indigenous Mexican peasant clothing to emphasize her mestiza ancestry: long and colorful skirts, huipils and rebozos, elaborate headdresses and masses of jewelry. 

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera

She especially favored the dress of women from the allegedly matriarchal society of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, who had come to represent an authentic and indigenous Mexican cultural heritage in post-revolutionary Mexico. 

The Tehuana outfit allowed Kahlo to express her feminist and anti-colonialist ideals, hid her damaged body. Her identification with La Raza, the people of Mexico, and her profound interest in its culture were to remain important facets of her art throughout the rest of her life.

More information: Museo Frida Kahlo (Spanish Version)

I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality. 

Frida Kahlo