Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter. Frida Kahlo painted using bright colors and an indigenous style that reflected the cultures of Mexico and European influences including Realism, Symbolism, and Surrealism. She was marred to fellow artists Diego Rivera, and had her own unique art style, often depicting herself in her paintings. The Kahlo self-portrait paintings were to symbolise her emotions and difficulties in different areas of her life. She led, like many top artists past and present, fairly turbulent life and her character and paintings have gained her great popularity around the world and helped her to gain success in her own right. Take a look at our Frida Kahlo painting gallery below to enjoy her art as we do.

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Frida Kahlo was a self-taught Mexican Surrealist Painter. It was not until the early 1980s, when the artistic movement in Mexico known as Neomexicanismo began, that she became very prominent.This movement recognized the values of contemporary Mexican culture. Previously she was only known as an artist married to legend Diego Rivera, but has at last received the recognition she deserves..

On September 17, 1925, Kahlo was riding in a bus when the vehicle collided with a trolley car. She suffered serious injuries in the accident, including a broken spinal column, a broken collarbone, broken ribs, a broken pelvis, eleven fractures in her right leg, a crushed and dislocated right foot, and a dislocated shoulder. An iron handrail pierced her abdomen and her uterus, which seriously damaged her reproductive ability.

After the accident, Kahlo turned her attention away from the study of medicine to begin a full-time painting career. The accident left her in a great deal of pain while she recovered in a full body cast; she painted to occupy her time during her temporary state of immobilization. Her self-portraits became a dominant part of her life when she was immobile for three months after her accident. Kahlo once said, "I paint myself because I am often alone and I am the subject I know best." Her mother had a special easel made for her so she could paint in bed, and her father lent her his box of oil paints and some brushes.

Drawing on personal experiences, including her marriage, her miscarriages, and her numerous operations, Kahlo's works often are characterized by their stark portrayals of pain. Of her 143 paintings, 55 are self-portraits which often incorporate symbolic portrayals of physical and psychological wounds. She insisted, "I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality."

Kahlo was influenced by indigenous Mexican culture, which is apparent in her use of bright colors and dramatic symbolism. She frequently included the symbolic monkey. In Mexican mythology, monkeys are symbols of lust, but Kahlo portrayed them as tender and protective symbols. Christian and Jewish themes are often depicted in her work.

She combined elements of the classic religious Mexican tradition with surrealist renderings. Kahlo created a few drawings of "portraits," but unlike her paintings, they were more abstract. She did one of her husband, Diego Rivera, and of herself. At the invitation of André Breton, she went to France in 1939 and was featured at an exhibition of her paintings in Paris. The Louvre bought one of her paintings, The Frame, which was displayed at the exhibit. This was the first work by a 20th century Mexican artist ever purchased by the internationally renowned museum.

Frida Kahlo paintings now reside in the following art institutions, to name but a few - Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, Fundación Proa, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Frida Kahlo Museum, Mexico City, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin, Museo Dolores Olmedo, Xochimilco, Mexico City, Museo de Arte Moderno, Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, Museum of Modern Art, New York City, Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California.