Biografia De Frida Kahlo

“I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint what goes on in my head without any other consideration.”
“I paint self-portraits because I am very often alone, and because I am the person I know best.”
“I have painted my works well, not fast but patiently and they convey a painful message.”
“I am not ill… I am broken… but I feel happy for beingalive as long as I can paint.”
Frida Kahlo...

Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo Calderon was born on July the 6th, 1907 in Coyoacan, Mexico, which was then a suburb of Mexico City.
Frida's mom was Matilde Calderon y Gonzalez (1876-1932), daughter of Antonio Calderon, photographer of Mexican-Native American descent, and Isabel Gonzalez, of Spanish descent via a general. Frida's father, GuillermoKahlo (1872-1941), also a photographer and artist, was born Wilhelm Kahlo in Baden-Baden, Germany. Guillermo was the son of Jakob Heinrich Kahlo, a jeweler and silverer, and Henriette Kauffman, both Hungarian Jews who migrated to Germany. Wilhelm Kahlo went to Mexico in 1891, and upon his arrival he changed his German name from Wilhelm to the Spanish equivalent, Guillermo. After arriving to Mexico,soon he married Maria Cardena and had three daughters with her, the second one dying days after the delivery and Maria died after giving birth to her third daughter, leaving Guillermo only with their two daughters. The girls were sent to live in a convent and Kahlo married Frida's mother, Matilde Calderon. With Matilde, Guillermo Kahlo had four daughters: Matilde (1898-1951), Adriana (1902-1968),Frida (1907-1954) and Cristina (1908-1964).
At age six, Frida caught poliomyelitis. It was the beginning of the physical pain that she had to bear all her life. Frida was confined in bed for nine months and during those months her right leg didn’t develop well, thinning and her right foot atrophied. Her father made sure Frida made the physiotherapeutic exercises needed to straighten her leg, butin spite of her efforts, her leg and foot stayed deformed for life.
In 1922, after finishing her primary education in the German School, Frida got into the National Preparatory School, the best secondary teaching institute in Mexico. Frida wanted to study Earth Science and become a doctor. In this school, Frida joined a group called Los Cachuchas, because of the caps they wore. This group sharedthe socialist-nationalist ideas of Jose Vasconcelos, Minister of Public Education. His boyfriend then, Alejandro Gomez Arias, a law student and journalist, was without a doubt the leader of the group.
Even though she didn’t plan on becoming an artist, Frida started to paint during her youth. Her works consisted mainly in self-portraits and family portraits and portraits of some friends. Some ofher early works were destroyed by Frida herself, and others that survived are of unknown fate. Up until 1925, Frida only had the support of one of her father’s friend, Fernando Fernandez, a respected printer. Fernando hired Frida as apprentice with salary to copy illustrations by Anders Zorn, a Swedish printer, and taught her to draw since he was impressed by her talent.
In 1925, Frida suffered anaccident that would change the rest of her life and would influence a whole lot in her work. On September 17, Frida and her boyfriend Alejandro got on a bus that would take them home from school. On their way, the crowded bus was hit on the side by a trolley and some people died. Frida suffered from various wounds and the doctors were unsure if she would survive. After spending a month in thehospital, she was sent home and had to be confined to bed for three months. After what seemed a complete recovery, Frida started to feel pain in her spine and her right foot, and she always felt tired and sick. A year later, she had to check into the hospital again. At the time of the accident, doctors didn’t take x rays, of her spine, but now they realized some of her vertebrae had moved. During...