Arts & Literature
A legendary life
Frida Kahlo
Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón
1907 – 1954
Mexican painter whose vivid self-portraits explored identity, culture, gender, and chronic pain.
Her story
A life that changed history
Frida Kahlo drew on Mexican popular culture, autobiography, realism, and fantasy to create an unmistakable body of work. Her portraits explored identity, postcolonialism, class, race, gender, disability, and her own experience of chronic pain.
“Diego my love—Remember that once you finish the fresco we will be together forever once and for all, without arguments or anything, only to love one another.”
Letter to Diego Rivera, 1940; English translation