Frida Kahlo (tribute)

Artist: Lorena Maria
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Frida Kahlo (tribute)

Frida Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907 in the house of her parents, known as La Casa Azul (The Blue House), in Coyoacán. At the time, this was a small town on the outskirts of Mexico City.

Her father, Guillermo Kahlo (1871-1941), was born Carl Wilhelm Kahlo in Pforzheim, Germany, the son of Henriette Kaufmann and Jakob Heinrich Kahlo. While Frida herself maintained that her father was of Hungarian-Jewish ancestry, researchers have established that Guillermo Kahlo’s parents were not Jewish but Lutheran Germans. Guillermo Kahlo sailed to Mexico in 1891 at the age of nineteen and, upon his arrival, changed his German forename, Wilhelm, to its Spanish equivalent, ‘Guillermo’.

Frida’s mother, Matilde Calderón y Gonzalez, was a devout Catholic of primarily indigenous, as well as Spanish descent. Frida’s parents were married shortly after the death of Guillermo’s first wife during the birth of her second child. Although their marriage was quite unhappy, Guillermo and Matilde had four daughters, with Frida being the third. She had two older half sisters. Frida remarked that she grew up in a world surrounded by females. Throughout most of her life, however, Frida remained close to her father.

The Mexican Revolution began in 1910 when Kahlo was three. Later Kahlo claimed that she was born in 1910 so people would directly associate her with the revolution. In her writings, she recalled that her mother would usher her and her sisters inside the house as gunfire echoed in the streets of her hometown. Occasionally, men would leap over the walls into their backyard and sometimes her mother would prepare a meal for the hungry revolutionaries.

Kahlo contracted polio at age six, which left her right leg thinner than the left, which Kahlo disguised by wearing long, colorful skirts. It has been conjectured that she also suffered from spina bifida, a congenital disease that could have affected both spinal and leg development. As a girl, she participated in boxing and other sports. In 1922, Kahlo was enrolled in the Preparatoria, one of Mexico’s premier schools, where she was one of only thirty-five girls. Kahlo joined a clique at the school and fell in love with the leader, Alejandro Gomez Arias. During this period, Kahlo also witnessed violent armed struggles in the streets of Mexico City as the Mexican Revolution continued.

On September 17, 1925, Kahlo was riding in a bus when the vehicle collided with a trolley car. She suffered serious injuries in the accident, including a broken spinal column, a broken collarbone, broken ribs, a broken pelvis, eleven fractures in her right leg, a crushed and dislocated right foot, and a dislocated shoulder. An iron handrail pierced her abdomen and her uterus, which seriously damaged her reproductive ability.

Although she recovered from her injuries and eventually regained her ability to walk, she was plagued by relapses of extreme pain for the remainder of her life. The pain was intense and often left her confined to a hospital or bedridden for months at a time. She underwent as many as thirty-five operations as a result of the accident, mainly on her back, her right leg and her right foot.

Saw this work in a window shop last month in NYC celebrating Spanish Heritage. It’s NOT for sale, I changed colours and cropped

Frida Kahlo (tribute) belongs to the following groups:

"Poetry and Beautiful Women" , Accentuate The Eyes, Beauty of The Human Body , Creative, Talented, and Unknown, Everyday Women, Feminine Intent (LIMIT TWO IMAGES PER DAY), JPG Cast-Offs, Latin America, Live, Love, Dream: May you have a Blessed Christmas Season , Masterpieces: Literary Workshop, Nostalgic Art and Photography, Selective Coloring, Shameless Self-Promotion, Strictly Human Faces , The Healing Journey, The Patchwork , The true beauty, Vibrant and Vivid Color and Woman Appreciation