timeline

born 1907

Frida Kahlo turned her pain into ground-breaking art that still speaks to us decades after her death.

A leg crippled by polio. Spine shattered in a bus crash. A heart tortured by a lover. Children never born. Frida put it all out there in vibrant, often shocking self portraits heavy with symbolism ~ a style borrowed from the indigenous people of her native Mexico. The diva of her day, Frida wore long skirts and trademark flowers in her hair. She lived by her own rules, smoking + drinking tequila "like a real mariachi," consorting with communists + lovers of both sexes. Small wonder Madonna's a fan, and Frida's paintings now command the highest prices of any female artist.

bio bits
today

explore

The Diary of Frida Kahlo shop
children's book | Viva Frida | by Yuyi Morales | september 2, 2014 shop
Museo Frida Kahlo | La Casa Azul
poster | Self Portrait with Cropped Hair {1940} shop
biography | Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo | Hayden Herrera | 1998 shop
The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo shop
Frida Kahlo: The Paintings shop

her quotes

all quotes by Frida Kahlo (18)

"I have a cat's luck since I do not die so easily, and that's always something."

to her doctor in Detroit {quoted in Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera} | july 1932

"I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best."

Una Pintora Extraordinaria {quoted in Frida Kahlo: The Paintings by Hayden Herrera} | unknown

"No moon, sun, diamond, hands — fingertip, dot, ray, gauze, sea. pine green, pink glass, eye, mine, eraser, mud, mother, I am coming."

The Diary of Frida Kahlo | 1944

"Only one mountain can know the core of another mountain."

The Diary of Frida Kahlo | january 1944

"Yes, it's true I'm here, and I'm just as strange as you."

The Diary of Frida Kahlo {published 1995} | 1944

"Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light. Tragedy is the most ridiculous thing."

The Diary of Frida Kahlo | 1944

"Pain, pleasure and death are no more than a process for existence. The revolutionary struggle in this process is a doorway open to intelligence."

The Diary of Frida Kahlo | 1944

"What I wanted to express very clearly and intensely was that the reason these people had to invent or imagine heroes and gods is pure fear. Fear of life and fear of death."

Frida Kahlo: Brush of Anguish | january 1945

"I have suffered two grave accidents in my life, one in which a streetcar knocked me down ... The other accident is Diego."

Imagen de Frida Kahlo | june 1951

"Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?"

The Diary of Frida Kahlo {published 1995} | 1953

"I was born a bitch. I was born a painter."

Finding Frida Kahlo | 1953

"I often have more sympathy for carpenters, shoemakers, etc., than that whole flock of stupid so-called talkers they call 'cultivated people.'"

The Frida Kahlo museum | 1953

"They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn't. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality."

Mexican Autobiography | april 1953

"My painting carries with it the message of pain."

to a friend {quoted in Frida Kahlo: crónica, testimonios y approximaciones by Raquel Tibol} | 1954

"At the end of the day we can endure much more than we think we can."

The Frida Kahlo Museum | 1954

"I hope the end is joyful, and I hope never to return."

Diary of Frida Kahlo | june 1954

"Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away."

Diary of Frida Kahlo | 12/31/1969 7:00pm

"I ask for it, I get it, I sing, sang, I’ll sing from now on our magic—love."

The Diary of Frida Kahlo | unknown

quoteurs we recommend...

Lupita Nyong'o
oscar-winning actor
Isabel Allende
bestselling author
Rose O'Neill
feminist artist + Kewpie inventor

for further reading about Frida Kahlo:

  • Quotabelle profile
  • Frida Kahlo

curated with care by Kathleen Murray + Meghan Miller Brawley {august 2014}

Museo Frida Kahlo ~ La Casa Azul

La Casa Azul {the Blue House} in Coyoacán, Mexico City ~ where Frida was born, lived with Diego, and where she died ~ is dedicated to her life + work. The Blue House sheltered Leon Trotsky + his wife in exile, and although she had other homes, both in and out of Mexico, Frida always returned to her Casa Azul. Within its bright walls, visitors can breathe in the atmosphere of joy, pain and ~ most of all ~ life that went into her incandescent work.

Boris Bartels | CC-BY-SA 2.0 | https://www.flickr.com/photos/barthelomaus/5663003

Hector Escarraman | Icons of Mexican Art mural

This mural in San Francisco depicts several icons of Mexican art, including Frida + Diego, in the muralist style championed by Diego. The two were married in 1929, although they met in 1922 when Diego painted a mural at Frida's high school. Both Frida's parents opposed her marriage to the famous Mexican muralist who was twice her age and divorced. Dubbed the Elephant and the Dove, for their wildly disparate size and not for their personalities, the two were staunch champions of each other's talents and work ~ though the respect didn't always extend to their personal life. They would go on to spend a tumultuous 25 years together, divorcing and remarrying once. Frida's wedding portrait, completed in 1931, is part of the San Francisco MOMA collection, and was first shown at the San Francisco Society of Women Artist's annual exhibition.

photo by Franco Folini | CC-BY-SA 2.0 | https://www.flickr.com/photos/livenature/229626988/

Two Fridas @ Philadelphia Museum of Art

Frida painted this in 1939, around the time her final divorce settlement from Diego was finalized. In it she depicts her loved and unloved selves ~ one with a broken heart, one whole. The whole Frida, in Mexican dress, cradles a miniature portrait of Diego in her hand, and shares a circulatory system with the European-style-clad Frida, who attempts to stem the loss of blood with a surgical clamp. As the daughter of a Mexican mother and a German immigrant father, Frida struggled with her mixed background ~ also depicted in Self-Portrait on the Border Line Between Mexico and the United States ~ especially as important as her Mexican identity was to both her and Diego.

Libby Rosoff | CC-BY 2.0 | https://www.flickr.com/photos/libbyrosof/2267007139

studio @ La Casa Azul

Frida's studio in La Casa Azul, now the Frida Kahlo Museum. The museum was established in 1958, a short 4 years after her death ~ a testament to her enormous legacy. Visitors can see many of her works, including her first painting, a self-portrait she did while recovering from her bus accident ~ Frida in a red velvet robe against a backdrop of the sea she said was a symbol of life. The still life on the easel {note the Mexican flag planted in an orange} is one of a series she was working on at the time of her death, confined to a wheelchair after spinal operations and a leg amputation. She rarely left her home, but art students came to her for lessons.

L.W. Yang | CC-BY 4.0 | https://www.flickr.com/photos/lwy/8505479773/