1. Americasby Peter Winn Topic #1 Frida Kahlo

2. Frida’s Paintings

3. Frida Kahlo Painted Mexico Green - good warm light Magenta- Aztec. Old TLAPALI blood of prickly pear, the brightest and oldest Brown - color of mole, leaves becoming earth Yellow - madness, sickness, fear. Part of the sun and of joy Cobalt Blue- electricity and purity love Black - nothing is black - really nothing Leaf Green- leaves, sadness, science, the whole of Germany is this color Greenish Yellow- more madness and mystery…all the ghosts wear clothes of this color, or at least their underclothes Dark Green- color of bad advertisements and good business Navy Blue- distance….also tenderness can also be this blue Red - blood?....well, who knows! Without landscapes or cityscapes, Frida painted Mexico. Her colors were Mexico. In her journal, she explained what her colors meant. Her face was Mexico. Her heartbreak was Mexico. Her broken back and barren womb were Mexico.

4. Frida’s Mexico “…Frida Kahlo remained faithful in her own way to the ideal of mexicanidad. (She) found her inspiration in Mexican popular culture and in popular forms like the devotional retablos painted to thank th Virgin or a saint for a miracle accomplished or a wish granted.” (Winn, 427) Moses, or the Nucleus of Creation (1945) From the Text:

5. Self Portrait Between Borderline of Mexico and the United States. (1932) Frida’s Politics

6. Frida, the Socialist Frida was a Socialist – committed to a movement of workers and the poor. She did not show this in her work, except on occasion. Frida and Stalin, 1954 She did, like her husband, have a famous painting with the likeness of Stalin, but hers was not famously torn down by the fat cats of New York industry.

7. Frida’s classless reach “Kahlo shared Rivera’s political commitment in her life, but most of her art is as private in its themes and concerns as Rivera’s was public.” (Winn, 426) However, she spoke to the Indian, the poor, the worker, the woman – in her self-portraits and in her actions. From the text:

8. Frida’s Husband

9. Frida y Diego Fridamade an indelible mark on the art world of Mexico and beyond, and an even more profound mark on the souls of women, with her examinations of what it is to be a woman, simultaneously strong and broken, in love and enraged, beautiful and imperfect, free and hunted. The Little Deer, 1946 She was married to the philandering and brilliant Diego Rivera. But instead of being lost in Rivera’s formidable shadow…

10. His Untamed heart “The Frida she knew was a person who longed to possess the elusive Diego Rivera yet knew she never could – except in her paintings. In her masterpiece, Diego on My Mind, Rivera stares out of her forehead as the “third eye” of wisdom.” (Winn, 427) Her paintings show us that she loved her husband, but could never keep him for herself. This painting is entitled: Diego in My Thoughts, or, Diego on My Mind, 1943 From the text:

11. Frida’s Body

12. Frida’s Pain She spent those years of her life looking at her reflection in a mirror placed above her bed. That mirror, that reflection – of herself – that was her muse. Her pain, her face, her broken body and all the dreams and wants that body housed; those were her inspirations. Frida was crippled by a bus accident at 18 years old. She spent most of her life in tortuous pain, without the ability to move from her back. Tree of Hope, Stay Strong (1946)

13. Frida’s Strength “”My painting carries with it the message of pain,” she wrote to a friend in the year she died, but “painting completed my life. I lost three children…Painting substituted for all of this.” Yet despite the intensity of Kahlo’s pain – the pain of artistic creation as well as the pain of her tortured body and psyche – she was a strong and courageous woman who overcame her private agony to put her unique artistic vision on canvas.” (Winn, 427). She wanted, desperately to be a mother. But she could not carry to term. She expressed that pain by giving birth to some of her most poignant and painful pictures. This painting is entitled: Henry Ford Hospital, (1942). From the text:

14. Frida’s Legacy (me and my frida tattoo)

15. Frida Kahlo as Inspiration “The Inspiration of Frida Kahlo” By Angelique Moselle Price, (2008) “Alice Walker” by Ester Hernandez, October 1995

16. The Gift of Freedom Frida created an artistic space that allowed the Mexican painter to escape the genre of muralist. “The Border” by Judithe Hernandez, (2009). An artist’s liberation ideology:

17. Mexico’s Frida Kahlo “Frida Kahlo – the unconventional painter and the bisexual, the celebrant of Mexican popular culture and fearless explorer of her own identity – who has inspired a younger generation of Mexican artists trying to escape the shadow of “the greats” of the mural movement.” (Winn, 428). One of the many Frida gifts and trinkets for sale in the shops and vendors of Mexico. From the Text: