Frida Kahlo: Mexico’s Iconic Disabled Painter

Frida Kahlo is recognized around the world as an iconic artist and one of the most prominent from Latin America and Mexico. She’s known for her famous self portraits which make up 55 of her 143 works which showcased her heartbreak as well as her physical pain. She was known for telling her truths through her art and each of her works reflect the highs and lows of her life at that time. She experienced pain in her right leg and foot beginning at age six as a result of polio as well as what some researchers believe to be spina bifida. At 18, she survived a bus crash that killed several passengers in her home in Mexico City. She suffered extreme injuries including multiple fractures of her spine, collarbone and ribs, a shattered pelvis, broken foot and a dislocated shoulder. For the remainder of her life she struggled with pain and it was foundational to many of her works.

Though she is today considered an international icon whose image is a pop culture staple, she is much more than her mainstream appeal. Today, she is considered an icon by many in the disabled Latinx community for her resilience, vulnerability, and openness. Read on to learn more about the beloved icon and how she’s become one of the most celebrated artists of all time.

Early Life

Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón was born on July 6, 1907 in Mexico in the borough of Coyoacán in Mexico City to a German father and a mother who was of Indigenous Mexican and Spanish descent. From an early age, she faced a variety of health issues. When she was six years old, she developed polio, a virus that impacts the nerves in the spinal cord or brain stem. As a result, she had to be bedridden for nine months. Her right leg and foot also grew much thinner than her left leg and foot and she experienced decreased circulation, causing her to limp. For the rest of her life, she would wear long skirts to hide her difficulty walking.

However, she was encouraged by her father to not allow her disability to stop her from playing a variety of sports like soccer and swimming. She even took up boxing and wrestling, going against social conventions and expectations for girls. Alongside physical sports to help in her recover, he also kept up with her lessons while she wasn’t in school, teaching her about literature, nature, philosophy, and photography. Over time, she learned to retouch, develop, and color photographs under his supervision.

Then, when she was 18, she and her boyfriend Alejandro Gómez Arias were on the bus home from school when they collided with a metal streetcar. Many of the passengers were killed and others were seriously injured with nearly fatal wounds, including Kahlo. A steel handrail impaled her through the hip, fracturing her pelvis bone along with several ribs, her legs, her spine, and her collarbone. She also displaced three vertebrae in her spine. She was in the hospital for three weeks and at home, had to wear a full-body cast and go on bed rest for two months.

This time was very painful for her, both physically and physiologically, especially because she’d had to give up her dreams of becoming a doctor in light of the accident and the extent of her injuries, which included fatigue and back pain. However, again her parents did their best to encourage her not to allow her disability to stop her. Instead, they encouraged her to paint, buying her paints and brushes, and building a special easel for her to use in bed. The following year, she finished her first self-portrait entitled “Self Portrait in a Velvet Dress,” which she gifted to Alejandro. This sparked a passion in Kahlo for painting and kicked off what would be a fruitful and successful career in art.

Career as an Artist

She had previously attended attended the renowned National Preparatory School in Mexico City in 1922 and first witnessed famed Mexican muralist Diego Rivera working there. In 1928, she reconnected with the famous painter and asked him to judge the paintings she’d done since the accident, which he praised. The following year, they were married (notably, against her mother’s wishes) and they began to travel all over the country in support of Rivera’s work including San Francisco, New York City, and Detroit. Sometimes, like in NYC, Kahlo was beloved because of her English fluency and frequently speaking with the press about her work even when they were there for Rivera. However, there were other cities where she felt confined and even bored by the wealthy and famous people she met. She also underwent two miscarriages, which only further impacted her mental and physical health.

Despite the constant moves and the challenges she faced, she was able to continue developing and honing her craft. She began to add surrealist elements to depict her inner emotional states and over time, her own reputation and popularity in the art world grew. She had exhibitions in New York City and Paris, where she befriended famous artists like Pablo Picasso. Her work was becoming well-known in Mexico, the U.S., and all over the world.

After her divorce from Rivera in 1939, she was determined to earn a living as an artist on her own beyond Rivera’s shadow. Fueled by her growing success, she began using large canvases to paint her work, using more sophisticated techniques, and creating portraits with simpler details and visuals, which she was able to sell at higher prices and more easily. Though she ultimately ended up remarrying Rivera (and having extramarital affairs with both men and women along the way), she never lost her independent spirit, talent, or love for her work.

Her Physical Struggles

Near the end of her life, Kahlo had to have several surgeries to maintain her health and sought frequent medical attention for her chronic pain without success. Her right leg had to be amputated to stop her gangrene condition in her toes, which is when the body tissue dies because of low blood flow or bacterial infection. She wore special plaster corsets to protect her spine. However, again, she pushed through the pain to do what she really loved, which was painting. She had her final exhibition April 13, 1953, her first solo exhibition, and despite having limited mobility, she showed up to the opening ceremony by ambulance. She sat in a four poster bed in the gallery had set up for her to celebrate.

She also managed to turn her corsets into art by painting on them. After covering them in scraps of fabric with patterns of drawn animals like tigers, monkeys, and birds, she added strokes of paint, turning her own body into a canvas.

Her health continued to worsen, so badly that she couldn’t sit or stand for long stretches of time. She sought medical treatment for her chronic back pain in the U.S. without success, including an operation that would’ve fused a bone graft and steel support to straighten her spine. Alongside her constant back and spine pain, she experienced pain in her legs, infections in her hands, and syphilis, which meant she was frequently confined to her home. She found joy in taking care of the home garden and the special pets that she became known for including spider monkeys, Xoloitzcuintlis, and parrots.

Famous Paintings

Kahlo’s paintings focused on self-portraits, which she often did in bed with the help of a mirror on her ceiling so she could look at herself. Many of them focused on what it was like for her to be disabled and live with constant pain and discomfort, as well as joy. One of her most famous portraits was “The Broken Column,” where she was most upfront about her pain and vulnerability. In the painting, she is naked and split down the middle by a surgical brace going from her chin to her pelvis area. All over her body, you can also see tiny nails and tears coming from her eyes, symbolizing her constant and consuming pain. Yet, she stands with strength to convey a sense of ultimate triumph, proving that having disabilities doesn’t hold you back from living a meaningful, full life.

Another one of her famous paintings is “The Wounded Deer,” where she depicts herself with the body of a young deer with antlers in a forest of dead trees and broken branches. This painting she did in reference to a painful period of her life in 1946 when she had an operation on her spine in New York to try to heal her chronic back pain. After it failed, she returned home, overcome with disappointment while her physical and emotional pain only worsened. In the painting, her deer body is pierced by arrows, while the background showcases her fear and desperation. Similar to the previous painting, this was meant to embody Kahlo’s sadness, pain, and feeling of helplessness while hiding a bit of hope, seen in the lit sky in the background.

Death and Legacy

During the last year of her life, she was in and out of the hospital in Mexico City to undergo bone graft surgery on her spine and treat an infection caused by the treatment. In 1953, she also had to have part of her right leg amputated. As a result of her physical health worsening, she grew depressed and anxious and even had suicidal tendencies as a result of her pain and her husband’s infidelity (see: The Suicide of Dorothy Hale). Despite everything, Kahlo’s disabilities didn’t stop her from being active in the art world and in political life. In fact, in her last appearance in public, she attended a demonstration to protest against the U.S.-backed coup of President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala. She also rejoined the Mexican Communist Party and collected signatures for the Stockholm Appeal.

Then, about one week after her 47th birthday, she passed away at her home, where she was said to have died from pulmonary embolism, which is when a blood clot appears and gets stuck in an artery in the lungs, preventing blood from flowing. However, her nurse was convinced she died from suicide and had taken an overdose of pills she’d been prescribed for her chronic pain. Ultimately, an autopsy was never done and the truth behind her death went unverified.

Following her death, Kahlo’s fame only grew and she became that much more celebrated all over the world. She accrued hundreds of accolades and honors including becoming the first Latina to appear on a U.S. postage stamp. Her photos and paintings can also be seen on peso notes in Mexico. In 2021, she made history with her painting, “Diego y yo,” which sold for $34.9 million in a Sotheby’s auction, it was the most money ever paid at auction for a work by a Latin American artist.

The house where she lived, known as the Blue House or La Casa Azul, opened as a museum in 1958 and draws millions of visitors each year. In 2002, Hollywood released Frida starring Salma Hayek and Alfred Molina as Diego Rivera, which was nominated for six Academy Awards. Today, her image and artwork can be seen all over the world and she has become a global brand in and of herself. More than anything, however, she is a reminder of the beauty that can arise out of disability and what is possible with a little resilience, strength, and perseverance.