Frida Kahlo contracted polio at the age of six, causing her right leg to be thin and her right foot underdeveloped. She wore trousers and long Mexican skirts to hide her misfortune and was heartlessly nicknamed "Peg-legged Frida." Later in life she changed her style of clothing and gained gratifying attention; due to her beautiful apparel.

Frida was a brilliant, optimistic young woman who had no plans to become an artist, nor did she know how famous as an artist she would become. Her aspiration was to attend medical school and become a doctor but on September 17, 1925 as she was on her way home from school, she was in a devastating bus accident which had a serious effect on the rest of her life. The bus she was riding was hit by a streetcar, and Frida nearly died from the injuries which left her with a fractured spinal column, collarbone, two ribs, a pelvis which was fractured in three places; her right leg had at least eleven fractures and her right foot was crushed. A section of the hand rail had pierced deeply into her tiny body. The metal rod entered the right side of her body and came out her vagina.

Frida was found by her boyfriend Alejandro Gómez Arias; Doctors believed that there was no chance of saving Frida and so they cared for other less seriously injured victims. Alejandro pleaded for them to help Frida until she was finally rushed to emergency surgery. When Frida awoke she found herself encased in a coffin like plaster cast with only her head exposed. For a month Frida lay on her back enclosed in a plaster cast. She wrote to Alejandro; "in this hospital death dances around my bed at night". The accident left her confined to bed for three months.

It appeared that Frida was going to make a full recovery but she began to have frequent pain in her spine and her right foot and felt tired all the time. About a year later she was re-admitted to the hospital. They did not x-ray her spine at the time of the original accident, and it was discovered that several of her vertebrae were out of place. For the next nine months she had to wear a succession of plaster corsets. During this period her family constructed a special easel and a canopy over her bed with a mirror covering its entire underside which allowed her to see and use herself as a model. She was unable to sit up due to the plaster cast. This was to become the beginning of her self-portraits. She stated that "I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best".

From 1925 on, Frida's life was a fight against slow deterioration. There were times that she felt well and there were times that she was either bedridden or hospitalized. Frida had at least 35 operations, most of them on her spine and right foot. The accident made it impossible for her to have the children she longed to bear. Much of her artwork is oriented by this tragic event and her life-long struggle; dealing with the memory and pain. In 1926, during her convalescence, she painted her first self-portrait, the beginning of a long series in which she showed the trials of her life and her expressive reactions to them. The self-portraits demonstrate in her face her feelings of pain, love, and her passion for life.

Frida Kahlo was married to the famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. Frida and Diego's relationship did not start off immediately with love. Frida, met with Diego wanting his direct opinion on her artwork. Frida, with resolve in her face, told Diego. "I have not come to flirt, even if you are a woman chaser, I have come to show you my paintings". Diego and Frida's relationship had begun with art, and continued to grow with art. Diego Rivera continued to encourage Frida, telling her that it would be best if she created her own style of painting. With his encouragement she formed her own ideas and techniques.

Frida expressed her feelings through her paintings. Her unhappiness can be seen in her bloody portraits and her paintings which shocked the world. Frida's pain and suffering inspired her to paint the greatest works of her life.

Frida Kahlo was an artist in various ways. Besides her incredible talent to paint her thoughts and emotions on canvas, she was also an artist in her mind and body. She was creative in how she dressed and she walked through life happily, with a smile on her face appearing full of spirit. However, she hid her real feelings deep within herself, letting the world see only the imaginary Frida. The world was oblivious to the agony of the real Frida, and what Frida truly felt.

Many people are fascinated with Frida Kahlo's artwork because of the emotional background. Frida kept it all inside, eventually expressing it on her canvas. She painted her anger, her unhappiness, painful miscarriages, and physical and mental sufferings.

Frida's talents to express her feelings were on canvas. Her paintings expressed her deep emotions. Frida's greatest paintings were believed to have been painted in her time of great depression. Many believed that her painting,"The Wounded Table" was one of her most original works. She painted it during her divorce with Diego. (They re-married a year later). It portrays Frida, surrounded by deathly figures, with blood and unusual objects connected everywhere. Her paintings soon became paintings of blood and suicide. Eventually, she would attempt suicide, like her paintings.

"...I paint my own reality, the only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any consideration..."

The marriage of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo is one of the most famous alliances between artists. It is a well-known fact that they had a passionate and stormy relationship, filled with great love and also betrayals. The love story of an "elephant and a dove." is a tumultuous circle of passion, abuse and dedication. Artistically, Diego was a muralist, painting the political and social surroundings of the times, while Frida was painting the personal, intimate secrets of her soul. They were perfect compliments to one another instead of the potential competition between artistic couples. They admired and supported each other. The conflict in their love was "loyalty versus fidelity." Frida knowingly married a man she knew could not be sexually faithful, but Frida demanded "loyalty ", and Diego promised this to her. Frida seemed to deal with Diego's constant infidelities; she even took some of his lovers as her own, but loyalty was broken when it came to Diego's affair with Frida's sister, Christina. Their relationship was severely damaged but the intensity, strength and power of their love somehow managed to surpass the broken promises and the numerous infidelities of both Frida and Diego; which eventually ended in divorce.

In the last years of Frida's life, while she was sick, bedridden and dependent on morphine...Diego came back to her. They, beyond doubt, truly could not live without one another, Her health reached its lowest point; shortly before she died; when she had to have her leg amputated due gangrene and her weight loss became so bad that she was bedridden for months. Frida stated, "I suffered two grave accidents in my life. One in which a streetcar knocked me down…the other accident is Diego." Although her life on this earth was brief and often turbulent and painful, she left us with a legacy of her art. Using her own style of painting, Frida actually painted the diary of her life. Each painting, captures a moment in her life. They show the emotions of her chaotic relationship with her husband, the life long physical and emotional pain she suffered as a result of a tragic bus accident and her inability to have children. After her death, a museum was put up exhibiting her artwork, and people still gather there to look at her artwork in wonder. Even with Frida dead for over 5 decades, she is still celebrated and thought of as an idol. When she died, at her funeral their last tribute was...

"Friend, sister of the people, great daughter of Mexico; you are still alive."

Frida Kahlo Paintings and Photos

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