Frida Kahlo

Mexican, 1907–1954. Frida Kahlo was a seminal female painter known for artworks featuring portraits, nature-inspired arts, paintings of pre-Columbian and Mexican artifacts, and intense self-portraits. Frida Kahlo’s paintings portrayed inspirations of Mexican culture and followed a folk-art manner that explored subjects like postcolonialism, class, gender, race, and identity in the Mexican culture. Her artworks with bright colors featured female subjects and their experiences. One of her notable self-portraits is a 1926 artwork titled Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress depicting 19th-century portrait style followed by Mexican artists. These portraits carried influences of the European Renaissance painters.

Frida Kahlo was born in Mexico on July 6, 1907, and wanted to pursue medicine. Kahlo met an accident when she was 18, making her unable to get out of bed. The artist had to give up her studies during the recovery period and moved to art, her childhood hobby. During the first few years of her career, Frida Kahlo’s portraits and paintings were part of prominent U.S. and European exhibitions. Frida Kahlo’s paintings at auction often portrayed intense autobiographical features and a combination of fantasy and realism. Frida Kahlo was a part of the post-revolutionary Mexicayotl movement. Her art is known for its magical realist and surrealist characteristics. It also featured her experience with intense pain. Kahlo died on July 13, 1954, in Mexico. In 1958, Kahlo’s house La Casa Azul also known as The Blue House was transformed into a gallery, called the Museo Frida Kahlo.

Today, Frida Kahlo’s paintings are on display at the National Museum of Women in the Art in Washington, D.C., the de Young Museum in San Francisco, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, among others. Collectors can also find Frida Kahlo’s paintings for sale at online auction platforms.