A Portrait of Frida Kahlo

Running Head:   A PORTRAIT OF FRIDA KAHLO

A Portrait of Frida Kahlo

INTRODUCTION: Frida Kahlo
This paper explores the life and art works of Mexican Painter Frida Kahlo. Her work was very significant because it was influenced by the indigenous Mexican culture. Frida suffered a tragic accident at the age of 18 that changed the course of her life forever. After the streetcar accident in 1925, Frida was left disabled and started to paint during her recovery.   She became the most celebrated female painter of all time. It is believed that her paintings were influenced by her husband Naturalist Diego Rivera.   Many of Frida’s self-portrait paintings captured a life filled with pain and suffering. Frida Kahlo was considered a Surrealist artist. However, she denied being a true Surrealist and did not like to be compared to them.
In order to determine what influences her paintings it was necessary to ask the following main question and sub-questions:
Main Research Question
Why are Frida Kahlo’s paintings full pain and suffering?
Research Sub-questions
1.   How pain and suffering influenced Frida’s art work?
2.   Were Frida’s paintings the result of a solitary life?
3.   How does Frida portray the Mexican culture in her paintings?

Why are Frida Kahlo’s paintings full pain and suffering?
Mexican painter Frida Kahlo was born in Mexico in 1907 from a German father and a Mexican mother of Spanish and Indian descendant. From early on Frida’s life was full of physical pain at the tender age of three she contracted polio and it affected mostly her right leg.   Then at the age of 18 she suffered a terrible accident that forever changed her life.   She was traveling by bus when it collided with a street car.   Her spinal column was broken in three places in the lumbar region. Her collarbone was broken and her third and fourth ribs. Her right leg had eleven fractures and her right foot was dislocated and crushed. Her left shoulder was out of joint, her pelvis broken in... [continues]

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