Frida Kahlo

Portrait of an Artist. "After her death at the age of forty-seven in 1954, the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo became first a legend, then a myth, and now a cult figure." Thus was Frida Kahlo described by her biographer Hayden Herrera in 1992. While it is sometimes difficult to separate the cult of personality surrounding Kahlo from her artistic accomplishment, it can be said without question that she is the 20th century’s quintessential autobiographical artist.

51 years after her death, there are as many answers to the question as there are audiences to ask it…

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) first came to the United States with her husband, artist Diego Rivera (1886-1957), in 1930. In the years that followed, they continued to sojourn to the United States, working as artists and frequently socializing with such prominent American figures as Conger Goodyear, the Rockefellers, Henry Ford, and Clare Boothe Luce, often making the newspaper headlines. Although Kahlo and Rivera spent a number of years working in the United States, their connection with the life and culture of Mexico – their sense of Mexicanidad – remained absolute and was the defining element of their identities…

The depiction of the female figure as Mother Earth can be explained in terms of the different life stages of the artist and her constantly truncated maternity. Mi nana y yo speaks of the native roots which sustain her and the losses which overwhelm her…