Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) was renowned for her self-portraits, and developed a style that infused Mexican and Amerindian cultural elements with surrealism and symbolism. As the above quotation implies, Kahlo experienced many... hardships in her life. At the age of six she contracted polio, which left her right leg physically deformed; as a teenager, she was in a trolley accident that left her lifelong back problems. Kahlo spent significant time in the hospital, and was notoriously irritable. However, her temperamental issues made her a fierce opponent when defending her ideologies.
The beliefs to which Kahlo held fast were the motivations of the Mexican Revolution, and Trotsky’s communist ideal—the latter had an effect on Kahlo seeing herself as an outsider, and the former had a strong influence on her aesthetic. Characterized by populist and agrarianist movements, the Mexican Revolution piqued Kahlo’s interest in the preservation of pre-Columbian and Mexican peasant traditions. For many posthumous years, she was better known as “Diego Rivera’s wife” than for her painting. But in the 1980s, Kahlo’s place in Mexican art history was recognized, and her work regained attention for its celebration of Mexican traditions.
Her work has also been described as "surrealist", and in 1938 André Breton, principal initiator of the surrealist movement, described Kahlo's art as a "ribbon around a bomb".[7]
Her volatile marriage with the famous Mexican artist Diego Rivera and lifelong health problems, many of which derived from the accident she experienced as a teenager are represented in her works, many of which are self-portraits of one sort or another. Kahlo suggested, "I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best." She also stated, "I was born a bitch. I was born a painter."
