Frida Kahol was born on July 7th, three years before the Mexican revolution was to begin. She would later say she was born in 1910 so her name would forever be remember with the beginning of the uprising. She was not a healthy child. polio at the age of six left one leg noticeably skinner than the other. When she was 18 she was involved in a bus accident. Besides many broken and dislocated bones, a hand rail also pierced her uterus leaving her almost unable to concieve. She became pregnant three times but none were successful. Even after recovering from the accident she still periods of extreme pain which could last for months. It was during these where she was confined to a bed or hospital room that she became serious about painting. She later married a fellow Mexican artist Diego Rivera. the marriage was trouble from the beginning, both having very fiery tempers. Both had affairs and the marriage ended in 1939 only for them to get back together in 1940.
Frida Kahol originally interested me of the mystery encompassed in her paintings. The woman shown seemed so intense and almost dark in some ways, then I learned it was her and I wanted to know why she felt the need to paint herself that way. The life she lived shed some light on the situation. She was a woman tossed and battered by life both literally and figuratively. The painting on the left is entitled "Self-Portrait with Hummingbird and Thorn Necklace." Her gaze almost seems exhausted. She has seen and live through so much that she has come to some sort of acceptance.The thorn almost seem to be encasing and her and pulling tighter around her, but she appears completely uncaring.
"I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know the best." -Frida Kahol
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