Frida Kahlo: Pain, Passion, and the Power of Art

Early Life and Formative Tragedy

Frida Kahlo was born Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón on July 6, 1907, in Coyoacán, a suburb of Mexico City. Her father, Guillermo Kahlo, was a German-born photographer, and her mother, Matilde Calderón, was of Indigenous and Spanish descent. Kahlo was proud of her mixed heritage and would later embrace her Indigenous roots as central to her identity and art.

At the age of six, Kahlo contracted polio, which left her with a weakened right leg. Though she recovered, she walked with a limp for the rest of her life. This early brush with illness would foreshadow the immense physical suffering that would define her later years.

Kahlo had aspirations of becoming a doctor and was one of the few female students at the National Preparatory School in Mexico City. However, at the age of 18, she was involved in a catastrophic bus accident. An iron handrail impaled her abdomen and pelvis, fracturing her spine and breaking numerous bones. The aftermath included dozens of surgeries, prolonged periods of immobility, and lifelong pain.

It was during her recovery from this accident that Kahlo began painting seriously. Confined to bed, she used a specially made easel and a mirror mounted above her to create self-portraits.

I paint myself because I am so often alone. I am the subject I know best

Frida Kahlo

The Marriage to Diego Rivera

In 1929, Kahlo married Diego Rivera, a towering figure in the Mexican muralism movement. Their relationship was famously stormy, marked by mutual infidelities and frequent separations. Rivera was 20 years her senior and already an established artist when they met, while Kahlo was still finding her voice.

Her mother called this marriage that of ‘an elephant and a dove’.

Despite the turmoil, Rivera played a crucial role in Kahlo's artistic development and helped her gain exposure in the art world. Their shared politics—both were committed communists—also bonded them, and their home was often a hub for artists, activists, and intellectuals.

However, Kahlo resented often being seen as merely "Diego Rivera's wife." Over time, she established a unique artistic identity that diverged sharply from Rivera’s large-scale public murals. Where his work focused on social revolution, Kahlo’s was intensely personal and introspective.

Artistic Style and Themes

Frida Kahlo’s paintings defy easy categorisation. Often described as a surrealist, Kahlo rejected the label, insisting, “I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality.” Her work is rich in symbolism, characterised by stark imagery, and marked by emotional intensity. Common themes include physical pain, fertility and miscarriage, identity, and betrayal.

Her self-portraits are her most famous works—haunting, unapologetic, and deeply revealing. In The Broken Column (1944), she depicts herself split open, her spine replaced by a shattered architectural column, her face stoic as tears roll down her cheeks. In Henry Ford Hospital (1932), she lies on a blood-soaked bed after a miscarriage.

Kahlo also infused her work with Mexican folk art, pre-Columbian symbolism, and vibrant colours. Her inclusion of monkeys, skulls, flowers, and traditional Tehuana dress helped cement her image as an icon of Mexicanidad (Mexican identity). Paintings such as Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940) and The Two Fridas (1939) speak to duality, heritage, and internal conflict.

Political Beliefs and Personal Defiance

Kahlo was politically engaged throughout her life. She joined the Mexican Communist Party in 1927 and later hosted exiled Soviet revolutionary Leon Trotsky and his wife in her home. Her paintings often included political commentary, and she viewed her identity as a woman, a person with disabilities, and a Mexican, as inseparable from her activism.

Her style of dress also became a political statement. By wearing Indigenous Tehuana clothing, she celebrated Mexico’s native culture while subtly rebelling against Western standards of femininity and beauty. She embraced her facial hair, unibrow, and physical scars, making herself the central subject of her own narrative on her own terms.

Frida’s outspokenness extended to her views on gender and sexuality. Though married to Rivera, she had relationships with both men and women. At a time when such openness was taboo, Kahlo lived with remarkable candour and freedom.

Decline and Legacy

In her later years, Kahlo’s health deteriorated significantly. She underwent numerous operations on her spine and leg, and eventually had her right leg amputated due to gangrene. Confined to a wheelchair and increasingly reliant on painkillers, she continued to paint and exhibit her work.

As her health worsened, it became more important than ever for Kahlo to own her image. Her spirit and zest for life were indomitable.

she was a woman who had a lot of fun, who loved tequila, who loved to dance, who enjoyED life. you see it through the intensity of her work

Circe Henestrosa is co-author of Frida Kahlo: Making Herself Up and curator at London’s Victoria and Albert museum

In 1953, Kahlo achieved a lifelong ambition of a solo exhibition in Mexico. Despite her fragile condition, she attended the opening lying on a hospital bed brought into the gallery.

A year later, Frida Kahlo died on July 13th, 1954, aged just 47 in her childhood home.

After her death, Kahlo’s fame gradually grew. During the 1970s feminist movement, her work was rediscovered as a powerful expression of female experience. In the decades that followed, exhibitions of her paintings broke attendance records, and her face—now iconic—adorns everything from posters to postage stamps.

Today, the “Blue House”, where she was born and died, is the Frida Kahlo Museum, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. She has become not just an artist, but a cultural touchstone, representing resistance, authenticity, and the strength to endure and create through pain.

Her legacy is not only the amazing body of work she left, but how we as human beings can become more resilient through creativity

Circe Henestrosa is co-author of Frida Kahlo: Making Herself Up and curator at London’s Victoria and Albert museum.