Frida Kahlo

She was born in Mexico in 1910. She had a large family. Frida, who has suffered from both physical and psychological pain at an early age, got polio at the age of 6 which caused weakness in one of her legs. Frida, who was the subject of ridicule because of this, wore skirts to hide it. At that time in her life, she was not interested in painting yet. She started painting when she was 19 years old. The reason for this is the tragic bus accident she had at the age of 18. In this accident, almost all her bones were broken and due to the blow to her genitals, she could not have healthy children and always had miscarriages Painting came into her life at that period of life when she no longer had any enthusiasm. She had many serious operations but she couldn't heal and she was laid up for a life time with motor disabilities. One day, when her father came with painting tools in his hands, Frida started drawing herself with the help of a mirror. Kahlo defined her image as the only object she had at that time, which is why most of her works in later life were self-portraits. Kahlo expressed the pain she has experienced in her life by drawing herself. She was also about to meet Diego Rivera, a very famous mural artist, with whom she spent most of her life. Frida had already known and admired Rivera thanks to his works and popularity when they first met. The second meeting would take place at a communist party, where Rivera would admire both Kahlo's beauty and her art (Rivera, 1991). No matter how much they loved each other, Rivera always had relationships with other women and this hurt Frida very much. She always sensed this in his paintings. Moreover, when they got married, Frida was only 22 while Rivera was in his 40’s. Shortly after the marriage, Frida became pregnant with her first child, but the pregnancy got terminated due to the defect caused by the accident. This period of her life was better, but she was not satisfied with it because she couldn’t practice her art and feed her family at the same time. That was until she got pregnant a second time and had a miscarriage. This time, the subjects of her paintings were similar things - birth, fetus, perception of life. Then she received the news of her mother's death. She was in America at that time. Frida was both crying and painting, almost talking with paintbrushes while drawing. She started to get sick a lot and her right foot had to be operated on again. In such hard days, Diego caused another grief. He had a relationship with Frida's brother. This made Frida return to New York where she had some affairs. Of all the nerve things to do, he wanted to end the marriage and theratened Frida with a gun. Unfortunately, he was again very manipulative and Frida was very weak. Nothing changed and they made up with each other. Edward Robinson - an American collector and film actor - bought her paintings, which were not valued until then, and this was an important sale for her. Afterwards, she opened her first personal exhibition. In 1939, Frida took her self-portrait to the Louvre Muesum for the Paris exhibition. In 1943, she started working as an art teacher. During this period, her life was ordinary, but in the 1950s, her health began to deteriorate. She had 7 surgeries on her spine in just 1 year. Morphine was no longer working. As a result, her psychology could not stand it, and she attempted suicide. When Frido was 46 years old, her leg was amputated due to gangrene. She passed away from a pulmonary embolism on July 13, 1954. What impressed us in her life was her depiction of women and their experiences in her paintings, and she used them daily. Frida depicted feminine problems in her paintings by using the emotional and physical pain in her life. This is why she is seen as the symbol of feminism.