Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y CalderĂłn, (1907 - 1954), was a Mexican painter best known for her uncompromising and brilliantly coloured self-portraits that deal with such themes as identity, the human body, and death.
The daughter of a German-Jewish photographer, she had polio as a child and at 18 suffered a serious bus accident. She subsequently underwent some 35 operations; during her recovery, she taught herself to paint. She is noted for her intense self-portraits, many reflecting her physical ordeal. Like many artists working in post-revolutionary Mexico, Kahlo was influenced by Mexican folk art; this is apparent in her use of fantastical elements and bold use of color, and in her depictions of herself wearing traditional Mexican, rather than European-style, dress.
Her marriage to painter Diego Rivera (from 1929) was tumultuous but artistically rewarding. The Surrealists André Breton and Marcel Duchamp helped arrange exhibits of her work in the U.S. and Europe, and though she denied the connection, the dreamlike quality of her work has often led historians to identify her as a Surrealist. She died at 47. Her house in Coyoacán is now the Frida Kahlo Museum. Although Kahlo had achieved success as an artist in her lifetime, her posthumous reputation steadily grew from the 1970s and reached what some critics called “Fridamania '' by the 21st century. She is perhaps one of the best-known artists of the 20th century.
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