FRIDA KAHLO

BACKGROUND

• Famous Mexican artist in the 1900s
• Disturbing style and many unsmiling self-portraits
• Polio at 6, bus crash at 18: pain during life
• Surrealist: distortions of reality and dreams
• Colors fluctuate based on emotions

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"DIEGO AND I": 1949

• Angry: Diego Rivera almost married Maria Felix
• Maria Felix was Kahlo's close friend
• 3rd eye: Rivera's superior mental and visual ability
• Yet another affair

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"FLOWER OF LIFE": 1943

• Saw flowers as symbol of sexuality, feelings
• Inverted mandrake plant
• Form of male and female sex organs
• Sun in the background generates life

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"GIRL WITH DEATH MASK": 1938

• Frida at about four years old
• Skull mask: worn at Dia de los Muertos
• Tiger: "Accentuates her innocence;
• Hints at the cruelty of her fate"

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"ME AND MY PARROTS": 1941

• After her remarriage to Diego Rivera in 1940
• Self-portrait
• Painted some of her favorite pets
• During her love affair with Nickolas Muray

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"THE BUS": 1929

• Mexicanized version: Daumier's Third-Class Carriage
• People of different levels of Mexican society
• Speaks to the different classes