Frida Kahlo
1 2017-05-12T14:51:58-07:00 Meelina Galope 28d2349bf23d3705ba6e5b701d82a322da046ea8 18317 1 Self Portrait Along the Boarder Between Mexico and the United State plain 2017-05-12T14:51:58-07:00 Meelina Galope 28d2349bf23d3705ba6e5b701d82a322da046ea8This page is referenced by:
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Frida Kahlo
10
Coyoacán, Mexico
plain
2017-05-19T09:14:44-07:00
07/06/1907-07/13/1954
19.3437° N, 99.1562° W
The magic and allure of the American Dream had no pull on this 20th century artist. Born in Mexico in 1907 to a Mexican mother and a German father, Frida Kahlo started painting in 1926, following a terrible accident that left her bed ridden for months. In the following years Frida met and the muralist Diego Rivera, and following their marriage the couple spent four years in the United States. In November of 1930 they moved to San Francisco following Rivera’s tour of mural commissions and art shows that would alter take them to New York and Detroit as well. While their continued time spent in America started to leave Frida weary, yearning to return to Mexico, Rivera was awestruck and had no desire to leave the country he found so fascinating. Unlike her husband, Frida faced many hardships during her time in the states, including dealing with two miscarriages. Below are three very notable paintings Frida did during those four years in the United States, all of which display her contempt towards this “manufactured” country.
“In the [above picture] Frida Kahlo makes clear her ambivalent feelings towards “Gringolandia”. In an elegant pink dress and with a Mexican flag in her hand, she stands like a statue on a pedestal between two different worlds – on the one side, the ancient Mexican landscape, governed by the forces of nature and the natural life cycle, and on the other the dead, technology-dominated landscape of the United States”
My Dress Hangs There was painted in 1933 and “represents an ironic portrait of American capitalism. Filled with symbols of modern American industrial society, it points to social decay and the destruction of fundamental human values. Frida Kahlo thereby takes an opposite view to her husband, who was currently expressing approval of industrial progress in a mural in the Rockefeller Center.”“On 4 July 1933, Frida Kahlo suffered a miscarriage in Detroit. The small, vulnerable figure of the artist lying in an enormous bed in front of a vast plain creates an impression of loneliness and helplessness – a reflection of her feelings following the loss of her baby and during her stay at the hospital. The impression of forlornness is reinforced by the desolate industrial landscape on the horizon, against which the bed appears to float.”
You can learn more about the life of Frida Kahlo here:
Quotes are taken from the biography Kahlo by Andrea Kettenmann (2006)
Written by Meelina Galope
