FRIDA KAHLO

TASCHEN's 25th anniversary - Special edition! Frida Kahlo - painter of pictures expressing the burdens that weighedupon her soul The Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) is one of the most important20th century painters, and one of the few Latin American artists to haveachieved a global reputation. In 1983 her work was declared the propertyof the Mexican state. Kahlo was one of the daughters of an immigrant German photographer and aMexican woman of Indian origin. Her life and work were more inextricablyinterwoven than in almost any other artist's case. Two events in her lifewere of crucial importance. When she was eighteen, a bus accident put herin hospital for a year with a smashed spinal column and fractured pelvis.It was in her sick bed that she first started to paint. Then, agedtwenty-one, she married the world-famous Mexican mural artist DiegoRivera. She was to suffer the effects of the accident her whole life long,and was particularly pained by her inability to have children. Kahlo's arresting pictures, most of them small format self-portraits,express the burdens that weighed upon her soul: her unbearable physicalpain, the grief that Rivera's occasional affairs prompted, the sorrow herchildlessness caused her, her homesickness when living abroad and herlonging to feel that she had put down roots, profound loneliness. But theyalso declare her passionate love for her husband, her pronouncedsensuousness, and her unwavering survival instinct.