Frida Kahlo Essay

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Frida Kahlo: A Painting Legend Many famous artists are known for their isolated lifestyles. However, Frida Kahlo lived and painted by a different set of standards. Frida Khalo was one of the most important 20th Century painters through her use of personal experience and communicating what she was feeling at that very moment. Kahlo was born July 6, 1907 in Coyoacan, Mexico to multi-ethnic parents. Her mother was a Mexican Catholic, while her father was a German Jew. At the age of eighteen, Kahlo was one of many victims of a horrific bus accident. The result was a broken arm, collar bone, ribs, pelvis, leg, a crushed foot, and being skewered by a metal rod (Mike Chronology). The recovery from this accident is what prompted her work as a serious artist. As she lay in bed, alone, her only escape, or way to express herself was through her art. Kahlo used her own experiences as her inspiration. Many of her works show the pain and sexuality, or bisexuality, of her life. If you where to look at the family photograph that her father took, you can clearly see that she is dressed as a man. The bisexual relationships would come in to play during and following her husband’s, Diego Rivera, affairs with various female artists, models, and finally, Kahlo’s sister, Christina. Many of the paintings she completed were directly related to how she felt and her surrounding environment. You will see this in her painting, “Self Portrait with Cropped Hair,” following her divorce from Rivera. Here, she presents herself in a man’s suit and has cut off all of her beautiful hair. A majority of Kahlo’s paintings are of self portraits. She displays herself in many different ways and once stated, “I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone…because I am the subject I know best.” (Mike Complete Biography) You can see through her paintings what type of mind frame she
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