Frida Kahlo

[Madalena Lobao_Tello]

Frida Kahlo
[Mexican Painter, 1907-1954]

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/kahlo_frida.html

Born July 6, 1907 in the town of Coyoacán in Mexico, Frida Kahlo survived many difficult events in her life, including contracting polio as a child, a long recovery from a serious car accident, two failed marriages, and several miscarriages.

She used these experiences, combined with strong Mexican and Native American cultural influences, to create highly personal paintings. Kahlo used personal symbolism mixed with Surrealism to express her suffering through her work. A viewer might classify her paintings as Surrealism or Magic Realism, but she considered her art to be realistic.

Kahlo died July 13, 1954 of pulmonary embolism.


http://www.pbs.org/weta/fridakahlo/

[Lana]

i read in the website : "In an age of liposuction, face-lifts and hair removal, there's something refreshing and liberating in coming to know a woman who flaunts the "defects" most women try to cover up. A significant portion of Frida's work is self-portraits, and her unibrow and mustached upper lip"

This women was free, in an age of "i am a sex symbol, and i am proud of it" an attitude like Frida's is needed. women oppression takes many forms and comes in different colors, colors that sometimes are decieving, liberation is not skin deep.

thank you Madalena for the article, and frida's website.

waiting for more of you

[Monika Macken]

Frida kahlo is one of the most brave women of all history..and one of the greatest painters too! Her statement became also mine: "I never paint dreams or nightmares; I only paint my own reality". Fantastic!!

[Crystal Robert]

Thanks for sending this Mada! Frida is very well liked here too. What can I say? The woman is amazing! She was 10 years younger than my grandma... so definitely way ahead of her time... She is one of my favorites!

[Madalena Lobao_Tello]

[Madalena Lobao_Tello]

Carlos Fuentes writes "The paintings, peopled with mythic figures, self-portraits, and monsters, articulate Kahlo's fantastic visions. One drawing melds a procession of crying faces onto an intertwined couple surrounded by body parts, only to dissolve into a mass of roots and dendrites.

, "...a streetcar crashed into the fragile bus she was riding, broke her spinal column, her collarbone, her ribs, her pelvis.... The impact of the crash left Frida naked and bloodied, but covered with gold dust." Her paintings depict her bodily experience, from anguish to sensuality.

Kahlo said, "I never painted dreams, I painted my own reality." This visionary ability earned her a place among the surrealists.

[Madalena Lobao_Tello]

[Madalena Lobao_Tello]

• I cannot speak of Diego as my husband because that term, when applied to him, is an absurdity. He never has been, nor will he ever be, anybody’s husband.

• The most interesting thing about the so-called lies of Diego is that, sooner or later, the ones involved in the imaginary tale get angry, not because of the lies, but because of the truth contained in the lies, which always comes forth.

• They are so damn 'intellectual' and rotten that I can't stand them anymore....I [would] rather sit on the floor in the market of Toluca and sell tortillas, than have anything to do with those 'artistic' bitches of Paris. [on Andre Breton and the European surrealists

• I never knew I was a surrealist till Andre Breton came to Mexico and told me I was.

Through her paintings, she breaks all the taboos of the woman's body and of female sexuality. [Diego Rivera on Frida Kahlo]

• The art of Frida Kahlo is a ribbon around a bomb. [Andre Breton about Frida Kahlo]

[Madalena Lobao_Tello]

Some quotes

- The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.

- My painting carries with it the message of pain.

- Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?

- There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the trolley, and the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst.”


Frida Kahlo