Though her image is easily recognisable today, Frida Kahlo spent her lifetime in relative obscurity. Overshadowed by her husband, recognition of Kahlo only really picked up in the 1970s when both the feminist and Chicano movements lifted her up as an icon. However, whilst Kahlo’s face is well-known, some aspects of her life are not; her disability is often overlooked, as is her bisexuality. 

In 1913, the six-year old Kahlo contracted polio, a crippling and sometimes deadly disease. She was lucky enough to survive, however she was left with a deformed leg and scoliosis. She may have also experienced post-polio syndrome into her 20s or beyond, which causes fatigue and chronic pain. 

This incident was just the start of Kahlo’s misfortune. A bright girl, at 15 she was one of only 35 girls (out of 2000 total students) to be accepted into the prestigious Escuela Nacional Preparatoria in Mexico. Her ambition was to study medicine, however those dreams would come crashing to a halt just three years later when she was involved in a horrific tram accident – an event made all the more tragic by the fact that she was not supposed to be on that bus. She, along with her boyfriend at the time, had gotten off her original bus to look for her umbrella, and then got on that second bus. Kahlo suffered injuries to her spine, collarbone, ribs, pelvis, shoulder, abdomen and leg, and her polio afflicted foot was crushed.

Of the accident, she wrote, ‘I sat down at the side, next to the handrail … A moment or two later, the bus collided with a tram … It was a peculiar sort of impact. It wasn’t violent. It was muffled and slow and it injured everyone … the impact hurled us forwards and the handrail went into me like a sword going into a bull.’

That she survived the accident was a miracle, and her injuries would go on to shape her entire life. She suffered from chronic pain almost constantly and would require multiple surgeries, most of which failed. Her right leg eventually had to be amputated in 1953, and she endured an abortion and miscarriages. 

Despite all of this, however, Kahlo maintained a vibrant personality and appearance. The stoicism and dignity she often displays in her self-portraits was reflected in her real life, only those closest to her knowing the true extent of her struggles. She was a passionate activist and feminist, participating in demonstrations including one against the CIA invasion of Guatemala just days before her death. She was a supporter of communism, though also espoused Mexican nationalism, to the extent that she changed her birth year to 1910, the year the Mexican Revolution began.

Throughout her life, Kahlo embraced the idea of mexicanidad and drew on Mexican folk culture in many of her paintings. Further, she paid homage to her mestiza heritage (Kahlo’s mother was of Spanish and indigenous descent) through her style of dress, favouring the Tehuana dress from the Tehuantepec Isthmus in Oaxaca, the region her mother came from. She did not always dress like this, sometimes preferring European-style dresses or trouser suits, but her elaborate jewellery and colourful outfits form the image that endures today.

As well as showcasing her political views, Kahlo’s paintings were heavily influenced by her disability. In fact, were it not for her childhood illness and subsequent accident, her work would not exist at all; during her recovery, she spent hours painting while bed-bound. She became her own muse – as she called it, she was painting her own reality.

I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint.

Frida Kahlo

Paintings such as ‘Henry Ford Hospital’ and ‘The Broken Column’ go a long way to display Kahlo’s reality. In the latter, she is depicted wearing a metal corset – Kahlo spent much of her life in one of these due to her spinal injuries and back pain. 

She also often displayed her mental anguish, as shown in ‘A Few Small Nips’ (Unos Cuantos Piquetitos). It portrays a gruesome murder scene, with the killer bearing a striking similarity to her husband, Diego Rivera. Kahlo and Rivera had an unusual marriage, living in separate (though conjoined) houses, and there were infidelities on both sides. Kahlo herself had affairs with both men and women – among them reportedly Josephine Baker, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Leon Trotsky. It was Rivera’s affair with Kahlo’s younger sister that inspired this particular painting, and the couple eventually divorced.

Kahlo fell into a deep depression – another illness that plagued her throughout her life – and she and Rivera remarried in December 1940, just a year after the divorce. She was also greatly affected by the death of her father in 1941, with whom she had been close.

Meanwhile, Kahlo’s physical condition continued to deteriorate. By 1944, she was living in unrelenting pain, and she spent most of her time confined to her home, La Casa Azul, with no company but her menagerie of pets. She was left wheelchair bound after an unsuccessful surgery in 1950, and her leg was amputated in 1953, causing another bout of depression and suicidal thoughts. She attended her first – and only – solo exhibition in a bed that had been set up for her in the gallery, ill as she was at the time.

On 12th July, Kahlo presented her husband with a ring – a gift for their silver wedding anniversary, which was more than a month away. When asked why, she replied, ‘Because I feel I am going to leave you very soon.’

The next morning, Kahlo was dead, leading some to speculate she committed suicide rather than suffering a pulmonary embolism, which was listed as the official cause of death.

It would be twenty years before Frida Kahlo became a common name, and even now many people only know her face, and not her story. Regardless, she lived an extraordinary life and her current fame is well-deserved. In a life where she faced every obstacle imaginable, Kahlo managed to continue with admirable determination and create a legacy that will last for many years more.

Sources:

• https://www.biography.com/artist/frida-kahlo
• Courtney, Carol A., Michael A. O’Hearn, and Carla C. Franck, ‘Frida Kahlo: Portrait of Chronic Pain’, Physical Therapy, 97.1 (2017), 90-96
• Prasad, Aarathi, ‘Frida Kahlo: endurance and art’, The Lancet, 392.10153 (2018), 1105-1106
• Francis, Alicea, ‘The Tortured Artist’, BBC History Revealed, 59 (2018), 55-61
• Ankori, Gannit, Frida Kahlo, Critical Lives Series (London: Reaktion Books Ltd., 2013)