This week we are celebrating powerful women throughout history. One of my favorite influential women artists is Frida Kahlo.
Frida Kahlo is one of Mexico’s greatest artists who mainly painted self portraits. She was born on 1907 and contracted polio at the age of six. While recovering her father put her into soccer, swimming, and wrestling to aid with her recovery. This made Kahlo a more independent young woman growing up. When Kahlo was in high school she was friends with a group of politically active intellectuals. This made further created her strong political views which coupled with her independence gained growing up, made her a very strong and driven women. After getting into a bus accident in 1925 which resulted in her fracturing her spine and pelvis. Bed-written for several weeks, she began painting her first self portrait.
When she recovered and returned to school she met Diego Rivera painting a mural in her high school lecture hall. Intrigued by his work she connected with him later on and the two married. This was Kahlo’s first exposure to the world of art and she went later on to befriend more artists and continued painting self portraits. Her work kept growing in popularity and was included in many group art shows. All of her health issues finally consumed her in the 1950s, causing her to lose almost all her mobility, however she still went to her first solo exhibition in Mexico in 1953. Arriving in an ambulance Kahlo talked with attendees the whole night. Kahlo finally lost her life in the hospital in 1954.
Her legacy lived on through the feminist movement of the 1970s which sparked interest in her life and her work. Kahlo was a very strong and independent woman who did what she loved and stood up for what she thought was right. Although she endured a lot of pain throughout her life, she kept her chin up and continued doing whatever she wanted to, whether that was playing soccer with a damaged right leg from polio at the age of six or showing up to an exhibition in an ambulance in a stretcher in an immense amount of pain at the age of 47. Although lived a short life, Ms. Kahlo left the world an empowering story of a woman who had undergone so much struggle but still persisted with her passions and her dreams.
https://www.biography.com/people/frida-kahlo-9359496