Trigger warning: miscarriage
Frida Kahlo’s life had been full of hardship from a young age. At just age six, she contracted polio, a virus that infected a person’s spinal cord, which left her with a permanent limp. As a result, much of her childhood was spent friendless and alone. Her closest relationship was with her father who pushed her to try an array of sports (unusual for a young girl, at the time) and secured a place for her at the National Preparatory School in Mexico City in 1922. At the time, only 35 females attended the school, and it was here she met Diego Rivera for the first time, whom she would later marry in 1929.
At school, Frida became involved in the world of politics; she was passionate about spreading progressive and communist ideas. Growing up in the Mexican Revolution influenced her heavily, by increasing her level of self-awareness and national pride, which she retained throughout her life. On 17th September 1925, Frida boarded a crowded bus and suffered life-changing injuries due to a collision between the bus and a streetcar. Bed-ridden and fighting for her life, Frida Kahlo picked up a paintbrush and started a self-portrait, unaware that she had begun to create her legacy.
Using an easel that was attached to the bed and an overhead mirror, she began to paint the first of her many self-portraits. In 1926, she completed her first piece; ‘Self Portrait in a Velvet Dress’. This piece contains the perfect juxtaposition of both pain and strength; Frida composed the portrait to show herself to be a strong powerful individual at the forefront of the painting, contrasted against a stormy background. Painting this for her ex-boyfriend, it can be argued that Frida wanted him to understand the pain she felt by losing him, (connoted in the stormy background) but also her strength and integrity, which she wanted him to remember her by. This self-portrait paved the way for future work, as each piece she created explored themes of identity, femininity, and pain, which combined with her political stance, merged to produce such omnipotent art.
Much of her work represented her own struggles which she portrayed both metaphorically and literally. One painting where this representation was executed most blatantly, was her 1932 portrait titled: ‘Henry Ford Hospital’. Within the painting, Frida positions herself lying naked on a hospital bed, experiencing a miscarriage. This piece is so powerful because she incorporated female sexuality, through the depiction of a naked woman’s body, which is typically portrayed as something sexual, yet she turned it into a raw and sorrowful thing. It can be argued that Frida was subverting the perspective on female anatomy to bring awareness to the pain that women feel when their bodies cannot do what society expects.
In both her own life and her paintings, Frida openly rejected feminine beauty standards and challenged the male gaze. Physical features such as her monobrow, upper lip hair and masculine clothing were viewed as unfeminine, yet Frida highlighted these features in her self-portraits, embracing these unconventional beauty norms. Her work, her appearance, and her individuality can be appreciated for breaking the boundaries of traditional feminine beauty standards and showing female beauty in a different light. She presented herself in her self-portraits as a confident woman often seen holding a strong gaze, and explored topics in her art that would have been seen as taboo, or simply not discussed, to show that the female body is beautiful, regardless of societal norms.
One painting that serves as an example to show a rejection of feminine beauty standards coupled with pain is ‘My Nurse and I’ painted in 1937. Exploring the topic of breastfeeding, Frida paints herself as being fed by the wet nurse that she had as an infant (her mother could not breastfeed Frida herself). Instead of displaying breastfeeding as a touching and beautiful act, Frida chose to show the reality and pain that would not have been frequently illustrated at the time of painting. The piece has a semantic field of sadness and disconnect for both the wet nurse and Frida. For the nurse, her posture and face demonstrate that she perhaps sees this as a chore and a demand that her body has to perform, while Frida feels no connection or love from the wet nurse or her mother who cannot perform this task herself. This painting serves as a perfect example of taking female experiences and allowing the viewer to see the suffering and pain that women had to keep to themselves.
Frida Kahlo’s legacy lives on today, not just because of her work, but because of herself as an individual. She was a resilient, creative, free-spirited person and her work continues to impact feminism and other communities. Her art was boundary-breaking and the transparency in her work continues to remind people that the moulds and boxes society attempts to put people in can be broken. Although her paintings began in Coyoacán, today her work can be accessed all around the globe, either through virtual or physical means; she is a constant reminder to be fearless and unique. Her story is one of hardship, suffering, resilience, and beauty because, through the many dark times in her life, she found light and created such beautiful pieces that society will forever treasure.