Celebrating Queer People of Color - Frida Kahlo

(Posted by Audrey, '11)
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter, known widely for her vibrant use of color (which was heavily influenced by the art of indigenous Mexican culture), her haunting self-portraits, and her tumultuous marriage to fellow Mexican painter Diego Rivera. Both Kahlo and Rivera had numerous extramarital affairs. Frida—who was openly bisexual—had lovers both male and female; Rivera tolerated her female companions but was intensely jealous of the men. As well as being active in the revolutionary movement in Mexico, both Kahlo and Rivera were communists and supporters of Leon Trotsky. After Trotsky was forced from the Soviet Union by Stalin, Rivera assisted him in moving to Mexico—initially into his own home, where Trotsky and Kahlo had an affair.

Kahlo was born July 6, 1907 in Coyoacán, Mexico—though she later claimed to have been born in 1910, so as to attach herself to the Mexican Revolution beginning that year. She began to focus primarily on her painting after a bus accident in which she suffered serious injuries, including a broken collarbone, a broken spinal column, broken ribs, a broken pelvis, and various injuries to her right leg. Additionally, a handrail pierced her abdomen and uterus, damaging her reproductive capability. While recovering in a full body cast, she painted in her bed using a special easel which she could paint on from her bed. Drawing from her personal pain (over her marriage, sexuality, miscarriages, and bodily injuries) to paint, her work was often highly symbolic and imbued with her acute suffering.