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Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo's 'The Two Fridas' shows her dual heritage and emotional struggle, one heart exposed and bleeding, the other intact but yearning—two selves stitched together by love and pain.

Frida Kahlo didn’t just paint self-portraits, she painted her soul. Through vivid colors, surreal symbolism, and unflinching honesty, she turned her physical and emotional pain into power. Born in 1907 in Coyoacán, Mexico, Frida lived a life of bold resistance and radical self-expression.

Frida Kahlo was trying to depict the superficiality of American capitalism. This painting is filled with the icons of the modern industrial society of the United States but implied that society is decaying and the fundamental human values are destructed.

After surviving a devastating bus accident at 18, she began painting while bedridden. That trauma shaped her forever, and her art became a way to process her identity, her disability, her heartbreaks, and her culture. Her work blends Mexican folk art with surrealism, creating an entirely new language for personal storytelling.

In this painting, under the gloomy sky, the sun and moon divided the background into two halves of light and dark. In the middle, Frida was sitting there and weeping in a read Tehuana costume.

Frida was proudly Mexican, proudly female, and proudly herself. Her unibrow, mustache, and colorful Tehuana clothing were political statements, rejecting Eurocentric beauty standards and embracing Indigenous heritage. Her paintings tackled everything from miscarriage and medical trauma to gender roles and sexuality.

'One of Frida Kahlo’s many self-portraits, using bold colors and emotional intensity to explore identity and suffering.

She lived loudly in a world that wanted her to stay quiet. Openly bisexual, politically outspoken, and creatively fearless, Frida made space for women, LGBTQ+ people, and anyone who's ever felt othered to see themselves in art. Even today, she’s a global symbol of resilience, identity, and self-love.

Frida Kahlo in traditional Tehuana dress, proudly blending her Mexican identity with personal symbolism.

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Dig Deeper

In this video, we'll take a closer look at Frida Kahlo's life and her artwork. We'll learn about how she was born in Mexico City in 1907 and how she started painting at a young age. We'll also talk about some of the challenges that Frida Kahlo faced in her life, including a serious accident that left her with lifelong injuries.

In 1925, Frida Kahlo was on her way home from school in Mexico City when the bus she was riding collided with a streetcar. She suffered near-fatal injuries and her disability became a major theme in her paintings. Over the course of her life, she would establish herself as the creator and muse behind extraordinary pieces of art. Iseult Gillespie dives into the life and work of Frida Kahlo.

We take an in-depth and immersive look into the life of the iconic Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo. In this video, you'll learn about the key moments and experiences that shaped Frida and her art. From suffering multiple injuries to surviving turbulent relationships, Frida proved to be larger than life in her drive to live and create.

Frida Kahlo is the most famous female artist in history. She deviated from the traditional portrayal of female beauty in art, and instead chose to paint raw and honest experiences. A near fatal bus accident at 18 left Frida crippled and in chronic pain her whole life, but she managed to make a virtue out of adversity, and astonishing original art out of her pain.

Discover more

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Vincent van Gogh

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Barbara Kruger's bold white-on-red text over a black-and-white photo

Barbara Kruger

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Further Reading

Frida Kahlo image

Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo began to paint in 1925, while recovering from a near-fatal bus accident that devastated her body and marked the beginning of lifelong physical ordeals. Over the next three decades, she would produce a relatively small yet consistent and arresting body of work.

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