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Year: 1940

Medium: Oil on canvas on masonite

Location: Harry Ransom Center, Austin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Portrait_with_Thorn_Necklace_and_Hummingbird

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Frida Kahlo (Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón) was an artist born in 1907 in Coyoacan, Mexico City. She suffered from poor health as a child and took to painting while ill. She is renowned for her impressive self portraits with themes of love, pain and politics. She died on the 13th July of 1954.

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Kahlo studied a range of courses such as biology and anatomy, as her original plan was to study medicine, but she had no formal education in art. She studied as an apprentice in engraving under a family friend. She was mostly self-taught.

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Kahlo was a part of a movement called Estridentismo (Stridentism) an artistic and multidisciplinary avant-garde movement, founded in Puebla City by Manuel Maples Arce at the end of 1921. Stridentism shares some characteristics with Cubism (ie. Pablo Picasso), Dadaism, Futurism (ie. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti) and Ultraism, but it developed a specific social dimension, taken from the Mexican Revolution, and a concern for action. A similar artist was Henri Rousseau, with a similar palette. The movement lasted from 1921-1932.

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Kahlo's work integrates themes of identity, love, pain and politics. She expressed her pain from being physically disabled by Polio and a car accident, and inner pain of suffering miscarriages and being infertile. Her art also involved themes that reflect the society and politics around her.

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Her artwork comprised mainly of self portraits, or portraits of others. She used symbolism throughout of Mexican mythology, and painted with bright, vibrant colours that catch the eye. The palette resonates with that of Mexican Folk art.

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Through the Mexican Communist Party, she met Diego Rivera, a fellow artist in 1927. They married in 1929. Rivera was a massive influence on Kahlo's works. She could not bear children, which she channelled in her art. They ended their marriage after 11 years. She passed away in 1954.

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Frida Kahlo was the first to depict female beauty in a way that diverged from the conventional beauty standard, and from the way women were depicted in portraits (for example, the painting My Birth, which depicted her as a baby emerging from her mothers womb, looking horrified. Her work used themes of political expression (in this case, her anger with the world) whereas women only tended to be painted in traditional portraits at that point.

She was also well known for painting very bright, colourful, and vibrant portraits.

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https://artsandculture.google.com/story/defining-frida-kahlo-s-place-in-art-history/VQWxF9pwAGmfKA?hl=en

https://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/read-write/reading-practice/level-3-reading/frida-kahlo-biography#:~:text=Her%20full%20name%20was%20Magdalena,with%20her%20parents%20and%20sisters.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frida_Kahlo

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The influence of Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Giorgio Di Chirico, Max Jacob, Francis Picabia and Modigliani can be seen in her work. Her greatest influence was most likely her husband, as he too took interest in the Pre-Hispanic past and reclaiming of Mexican history