Frida Kahlo Essay -- Papers

Frida Kahlo Frida Kahlo's life was one marked by extreme suffering, extreme heroism, and extreme genius. Stricken with polio as a child then nearly crippled in a bus accident at the age of eighteen, Kahlo defied the odds not only by learnng to walk again (twice) but by taking the world by storm with her unique artistic vision. Frida Kahlo was born July 6, 1907 near Mexico City. However, she always claimed to be born in the year of the Mexican Revolution, 1910, in order to link her own birth to that of modern Mexico. It was just one of the many half-truths Kahlo told about her life, some say, in order to create a myth through which she would always be remembered. The desire to be remembered was always a central theme of Kahlo's art, as reflected in the many self-portraits she painted (the images for which she is best known). Once she embroidered a pillow for her husband, the muralist Diego Rivera, which read, "Remember me, my love." Kahlo's obsession with mortality is no mystery as illness, severe pain and the threat of death repeatedly imposed themselves on her young life. At age six, Kahlo contracted polio and had to spend 9 months confined to her room. During that time, she created an imaginary friend who would later be reflected in a painting called "The Two Fridas." Explaining the painting in her diary she wrote, "I experienced intensely an imaginary friendship with a little girl more or less the same age as me ... I followed her in all her movements and while she danced, I told her my secret problems." Once over the polio, Kahlo seemed determined to live life to the fullest. She became a tomboy at school and the le... ...e couple did divorce, in 1939, they reunited in less than a year. For all their troubles, they remained one another's greatest loves and greatest fans. That same year Kahlo suffered another blow. Her right leg had to be amputated below the knee due to a gangrene infection. On July 13, 1954, at the age of 47, Frida Kahlo died. The cause was never officially determined. The last entry in Kahlo's diary read, "I hope the leaving is joyful and I hope never to return." Little known outside of the art world until the 1990's, Frida Kahlo has recently become a cultural icon. Numerous books and articles have been written about her. She has been the subject of three documentaries, and a feature film about her life was released October 25, 2002. For a woman who wished to be remembered, it seems, her wish has come true.