Frida Kahlo is a very famous Mexican artist who used bright colors to create fantastic, dreamlike paintings. She grew up with four sisters in her parents�?? house, La Casa Azul (the Blue House). Frida was especially close with her father, Guillermo Kahlo, a German Jew who immigrated to Mexico.

The Mexican Revolution began when Frida was only three years old. Her parents protected her during the battles and they cooked meals for the revolutionary soldiers. Little Frida was proud of the revolutionaries. She even told grown-ups that she was born on the day of the revolution so that they would think of her when they thought of the Mexican Revolution.

Frida was a sickly young girl but she was curious about medicine and loved sports like boxing. When she was a teenager, she was riding in a bus that crashed into a trolley car. Frida was hurt very badly. The accident broke her spine, her collar bone, her pelvis, her leg, and her foot. Frida did get better. She learned to walk again but she struggled with pain for the rest of her life. She spent months in bed and in the hospital.

After the accident, Frida began painting. She was stuck in a full body cast for three months. So, she made art to pass the time. With all that practice, she got very good, very fast. She especially enjoyed self-portraits. �??I paint myself,�?� Frida said, �??Because I am often alone and I am the subject I know best.�?� Her mother had a special easel made for her so she could paint in bed, and her father gave her his paint brushes and a box of paints.

Frida�??s husband, Diego Rivera, was the most famous Mexican painter at that time. They were nicknamed �??The Elephant and the Dove�?� because he was a very big man and she was a very small woman. Their home is famous in Mexico because it was actually two houses connected by a bridge. Kahlo and Rivera shared a love of politics. They even befriended Leon Trotsky when he ran for his life from Joseph Stalin�??s deadly regime in the Soviet Union.

Kahlo�??s artwork was very powerful. She used her life experiences to create personal symbols. She combined those with Mexican and Native American cultural influences to create sensitive and emotional paintings. Some art historians call her a Surrealist or a Magic Realist, but she considered her art to be realistic because it was about her life.

A few days before Frida Kahlo died in 1954, she wrote in her diary: �??I hope the exit is joyful – and I hope never to return – Frida.�?�

Portrait by yours truly.