FRIDA KAHLO
I have know girls named Freda, Freddie, Frankie, Franny and I remember meeting a charming little Irish girl named Feona once years ago when she was a foreign student in our area. But - I never recall ever
meeting, or even hearing of, a girl named Frida. I assume it is pronounced Free-da, or it could be Fri-da - as in the day of the week.
The name belonged to a complex , young girl by the name of Frida Kahlo. Her father was a Hungarian Jew and a photographer. Her mother was part Spanish and part native American. Frida was born in Mexico
City in 1910. At age six she was stricken with polio which left her with a permanent limp. Undaunted she went on to become an unabashed tomboy type and a favorite with her father. At age thirteen he enrolled her as one of
thirty-five girls in a student body of two thousand at the prestigious Preparatoria - the national prep school of Mexico and her career and mis-adventures proceeded.
At the school she met a young painter who had just returned to Mexico from France who was commissioned to do some murals in Mexican public buildings. His name was Diego Rivera and teen-ager Frida
found herself attracted to him. Not knowing how to deal with her emotions, the young girl teased him without mercy, played practical jokes on him and discovered numerous ways to make his wife Lupe Marin jealous. In 1925, Frida
was riding in a bus which collided with a streetcar. She was severely hurt and it was said that those injuries would prevent her from ever having children.
Many women might have given up at this point, but not
Frida Kahlo. She was forced to withdraw from school and thus away from Diego and Lupe Rivera. During her convalescence, Frida did something she had never done before. She painted a picture - a self-portrait. This was the
beginning or a new life for her.
She met a young photographer by the name of Tina Modotti and they became communist militants opposed to the “reactionary” rule of the Calles government of Mexico. When the
government withdrew all support from Diego Rivera concerning the murals he was doing , she took it as personal affront. Diego Rivera had been divorced from Lupe Marin by this time, so he and Frida were married and went off to
San Francisco and then to New York. after a quick visit to Mexico convinced them they were no longer welcome there. He accepted work in Detroit where Frida miscarried and-again, in recovery - painted another self-portrait titled
“Miscarriage in Detroit.” The career of Diego Rivera mis-carried shortly afterward. He was commissioned to do large murals at Rockerfeller Center, in New York, but his communists background caught up with him. He was dismissed
and all the work had completed was torn down.
Frida was painting with regularity. She developed, with Rivera’s generous and eager help, a style akin to native tribal art of ancient Mexico. She specialized in small paintings called “retablos” of the type used in so
many Mexico churches. I find it odd to think that her small paintings may, in time, live on-and-on and her reputation as an artist steadily increase, which that of Diego Rivera and his massive murals will fade away and be difficult to
remember.
Frida Rivera is quoted as having said: “Two accidents shaped my life....a tram knocking me down... the other accident was meeting Diego Rivera.”
Consider Frida when you think you have “troubles.” But do not - I repeat - do not - set her up as an example to follow. From this point on Frida Rivera made the worst possible choices in almost everything she did
and her life came tumbling down around her. Her’s is one of the greatest stories of an artist gone wrong.
It is best read, or retold, perhaps, as a “How NOT To...” guide.
A.L.M. April 11, 2002 [c 670wds]
