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Family background
Her father, Wilhelm Kahlo, was German, and had moved to Mexico at a young age where he remained for the rest of his life, eventually taking over the photography business of Kahlo's mother's family. Kahlo's mother, Matilde Calderon y Gonzalez, was of mixed Spanish and indigenous ancestry, and raised Frida and her three sisters in a strict and religious household (Frida also had two half sisters from her father's first marriage who were raised in a convent).

Even though she was very close to her father, she had a strained relationship with her mother.

Relationship with Diego
the couple married in 1929 and two years later, while staying in San Francisco, kahlo painted a wedding portrait. They had messy fights, multiple extra-marital affairs and even divorced in 1939 only to be married a year later. They spent the late 1920s and early 1930s travelling in Mexico and the United States together. She once wrote in her diary that diego was her everything.
Relationship with her father
Relationship with her mother
Education background

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Frida made this painting in response to the Nuremberg race law that was passed on by the nazis in the 1935 that prohibits the marriage and sexual relationship between Jews and Germans. She also made this to show that she was proud of her mixed heritage and the she does not care for the discrimination of “racially suspect” ,”offsprings between German or related blood and that she wishes to speak against all the discrimination

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Frida Kahlo was trying to depict the superficiality of American Capitalism.This painting is filled with the icons of the modern industrial society of the United States but implied that society is decaying and the fundamental human  values are destructed.Amongst the towers of New York, makes a mockery out of the modern American obsession with sports by placing a trophy and a toilet on top of classical columns, indicating the hypocrisy of the society, stating that the achievements are valued above all else that is human.

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In the painting, there are the artist’s mother and maternal Grandparents on the left side. And on the right side is Frida’s father and her paternal Grandparents. Both sides are then connected by a red ribbon which is held by child Frida, who is standing in her family home. There is also a fetus attached to the mother which is also Frida. Below that there is also a flower being pollinated along with an egg cell and a sperm. Also, if you look closely at the red ribbon Frida is holding it’s shaped kinda like a uterus and two ovaries. There is also the sea in the background which means that Frida lives near an ocean.

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Her relationship with Diego Rivera was perhaps the most significant influence on her life and on her development as an artist. Rivera's interest in the pre-Hispanic past and the reclaiming of Mexico's history and culture transformed Frida's work and her identity.

The terrible accident she had experienced when she was 18 greatly influenced her life and fortified her resilience when approaching situations.

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My Grandparents, My Parents and I (Family Tree) by Frida Kahlo shows her German Jewish father and his parents and her Mexican mother and her parents, Frida’s parents and herself firstly as a foetus and then as a little girl.

Kahlo placed the image of her parents, based on their wedding photograph, at the very centre of the painting, making them the focal point and at the same time stressing the importance of the matrimonial bond that gave her life.

On the left, we see her maternal grandparents of South American Indian and Spanish stock and on the other we are shown Frida’s paternal grandparents, of Austrian and Hungarian origin.  In the painting, Kahlo based the portraits of her paternal grandparents on their photographs but modified her grandmother's features so that she bears a resemblance to Frida herself.

There is a foetus in the womb with its umbilical cord from the woman’s waist and a depiction of a sperm and egg below it. This seems to suggest a relationship between the child with the foetus and the sperm and egg which then has a connection to the couple, her parents.

The red ribbon suggests blood lines connecting her to her parents who are then connected to the old couples on either side of the painting.

On one side of the painting is the Mexico she knows and on the other is the sea in the distant horizon line emblematic of a far-away and unknown Europe.

In the painting, Frida Kahlo expresses herself as the culmination of two cultures and heritages, her mother’s Mexican roots and her father’s German Jewish roots.

She depicts herself as a naked girl in the family home, seemingly to present her understanding of her vulnerabilities.

Kahlo's adaptation of a genealogical chart as the basis for her 1936 family tree relates to her father's German-Jewish identity, seen and understood against the political developments at that time. In September 1935, the Nazi government established the Nuremberg laws, which prohibited intermarriage and promoted "racial purity.“

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One method of proving or disproving this was the delineation of genealogical charts. Such charts, usually traced back three generations, became a prominent tool in Nazi Germany as proof of racial purity.

Kahlo used this idea of the genealogical chart in visual form to stress the opposite and celebrate her interracial origins. Hence, she was making a subversive statement reflecting her identification with her Jewish roots.

She painted this as a rebellious reflection of her heritage when Hitler outlawed interracial marriage, standing proudly by her mixed German roots in defiance of Hitler's ideals. This reflection of her family tree represents pride in her mixed heritage and the fact that she is a part of the things that Hitler was against.

Above the sea, she painted her German grandparents, who were Jewish and probably contributed to her concern with the Nazi regime. The sea symbolized the fact that they were from overseas and although part of her history, they were not part of Mexico, where she grew up and thrived.

She painted her maternal grandparents above the mountain terrain of Mexico.

The young Frida shown in the girl stands beneath them all in the Blue House or La Casa Azul (as it is sometimes known) where she grew up and this little girl holds the red ribbon that ties each of her family members together, representing their blood line.

Kahlo suggests that her mother's role in her life was primarily that of the person who gave birth to her, in contrast to her deep and loving relationship with her father.

Her relationship with her parents is suggested by their relative positions in the painting.

She paints herself as a foetus on top of her mother’s white wedding dress in recognition of her mother's role in bringing her into the world. However, as a child, who literally and figuratively stands on her own two feet, Kahlo is clearly situated on her father's side. She stands in the protected courtyard of the Casa Azul, the home that her father built for his family.

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Compositional Devices:

Whole painting:

Radial

Layering

Symmetry

Aerial Perspective

Foreground:

patch work

Family Tree structure

Background:

Linear Perspective

This art piece is done in the style of a retablo, painted with oil and tempera.

Kahlo collected eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Mexico retablos—small paintings on metal made to thank God or saints for curing illnesses and performing miracles—and adopted the medium as her own.

These unique art forms are a hybrid of centuries old Catholic iconography and indigenous artistry; reflecting the historical, cultural and religious links between "old" and "new" worlds.

Henri Rousseau was her favorite modern painter and that My Grandparents, My Parents, and I was influenced by Rousseau's
The Present and the Past.

In his painting, Rousseau depicts himself and his wife, Josephine, standing behind a flowering tree. Above the couple, on fluffy clouds in the sky, the artist's formerly bearded face is set alongside that of his first, deceased wife, Clemence.

Both Kahlo and Rousseau emphasize the matrimonial bond as the foundation of the family unit. Both artists include trees; perhaps symbolic of the family tree, and symmetrical compositions that portray personal identities and family relationships.
Both artists portray the self as a changing entity that evolves over time.

As she transformed the drawing into a painting, Kahlo added visual images that were inspired by Isaac Berliner's book of Yiddish poems, City of Palaces, which Diego Rivera was illustrating in 1936.

Berliner's opening poem is devoted to the immigrant experience. Each stanza begins with the line "On this side of the sea," stressing the division between the land and the sea. The final stanza culminates in an evocative symbol: "On this side of the sea, My tree trunk is already deeply rooted in the land." Kahlo depicts her own leg as a tree that is deeply rooted in her Mexican home.

Her image of an extraordinary womblike cactus flower, fertilized by wind-carried seeds, is based on the introduction to Berliner's book by the Yiddish writer M. Rosenberg: Winds are not always evil. Often they are carriers of fertile seeds across hundreds of miles. Sometimes you see a flower in the desert and wonder: Who brought it here? How did this beautiful plant come to this place?

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Kahlo’s painting clearly transmits the message to its audience that cities have an inherent dichotomous nature.

In her painting, she shows one of the modern industrialized cities juxtaposed against its associated depravity.

Cities can be considered places of excitement, discovery, creativity, prosperity and enlightenment, but at the same time, they can be places of poverty, crime, decay, desperation, alienation, congestion, pollution and societal unrest.

The disparities she shows in the composition of this work shows the great contrast in reality of the urban myth. She criticises the capitalist nature of the American Society by replacing the stairs of the Federal Building with that of monetary charts—as though silently commenting how wealth is the foundation to the country and beneath all that was depravity and squalor.

This painting shows much of her isolation, her indomitable spirit and sense of self, powerful insights into national identity, plight of the poor, the influence of technology, Mexico’s relationship with the United States.

This painting is also typical of Frida’s style of being totally open and honest, painting her emotions and revealing her opinions good or bad via strong symbolism and imagery.

Her style was original, dramatic and courageous, an almost painful realization for the viewer on realization of her message.

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"I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality."

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"I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality."

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"I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best."

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"I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best."

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Kahlo suffered lifelong health problems, many caused by a bus accident she survived as a teenager. Recovering from her injuries isolated her from other people, and this isolation influenced her works, many of which are self-portraits of one sort or another.

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.

Drawn from personal experiences, including her marriage, her miscarriages, and her numerous operations, Kahlo's works are often characterized by their suggestions of pain.

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Mexican Art and culture are shaped by Mexican history. Mexican history may be divided into the Mesoamerican era, the colonial period and the period after Mexican War of Independence.

Mesoamerican art  is produced by the Aztec Empire. The Aztec Empire lasts for 300 years from 1500 BCE to 1500 CE. Thereafter is the Spanish colonial period.

Environment & Ways of Life

Kahlo’s work is sometimes categorized as naïve art, folk art and surrealist.

Mexican culture and Amerindian cultural tradition are important in her work. Amerindian – American Indian

As well as Christian Art.

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Influences: Mexican, Christian and Jewish 

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Influences: Mexican, Christian and Jewish 

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Kahlo was also influenced by indigenous Mexican culture, which is apparent in her use of bright colors, dramatic symbolism and primitive style.

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.

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Frida Kahlo uses her artworks to depict history, the environment and ways of life. Her artworks show the record and investigation of historical events, personal experiences and daily lifestyles of people.

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Issues with Identity, Capitalism

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An ironic portrait of American capitalism and superficiality.

Filled with symbols of a modern American industrial society, it points to social decay and the destruction of fundamental human values.

Opposite to Diego’s expression of his approval of industrial progress in a mural in the Rockefeller Center.

Upper Background - Her representation of the iconic Statue of Liberty, Federal Hall, skyscrapers and factories which were seen as symbols of wealth and freedom. The Statue of Liberty poses as a satirical reminder of what the United States was meant to stand for, the land of freedom and a place where everyone could start a new life of wealth and luxury.

Lower Half & Foreground of the painting - The squalor in the foreground portrays a diverse impression of a city of decay, depravity, alienation, and destroyed human dignity.

Bottom & Foreground of the painting:
Her appropriated photographs of Depression-era unemployment juxtapose "reality" with the "made-up" painting and thereby highlight the vulgar display of American wealth and well-being as opposed to the poverty and suffering of the lower classes.

My Dress Hangs There, 1933, was set amidst the skyscrapers of New York, ridicules the modern American obsession with sport and sanitation by placing a golf trophy and a toilet joined by a blue rope, both on top of classical columns.

The traditional Mexican Tehuana dress, which Kahlo took to wearing soon after she married Rivera is the focal point of the painting.

By adopting the regional costume, she was expressing her burgeoning sense of her own national identity, which at that time was rediscovering its pre-Columbian and indigenous heritage.

Being in that alien culture made her even more conscious of her own rich culture which she chose to hold on to even more by adopting the traditional dress in order to set herself apart even more from the culture that many immigrants were doing.

By hanging her dress empty, Kahlo is making the statement that while she was living in the United States, her heart is not in it; she wants nothing to do with the capitalist society there. She would usually paint herself as the focal point.

In the top centre of the painting stands Federal Hall is Kahlo’s symbol of capitalism. Her leftist distaste for Manhattan as the centre of capitalism and capitalism is expressed in the following manner:

The steps of Federal Hall are presided over by a statue of George Washington, a representative of the idealism of the past. Instead of a set of marble stairs Kahlo has pasted a sales graph showing ‘Weekly Sales in Millions’, which is juxtaposed with a collage effect at the bottom of the canvas.

The building is linked to a Gothic church via a red ribbon, suggestive of a vital vein or artery. As such she hints that the church and the Federal Building have bloodlines that connect them both illegally as both are meant to be institutions that have opposing intentions and are meant to be set apart to be of service to the individual.

In the window of the church a red ‘S’ transforms the crucifix in to a dollar sign thus throwing more bad light upon the church which is meant to stand for the poor and the down trodden in society and not a vehicle for mammon worship.

Alongside the church is another representation of false values, a billboard of Mae West an actress, who brings up connotations of vanity and luxury.

To the artist her appeal is ephemeral; however, the edges of the billboard are peeling and the buildings below her are burning. Another indication of the decay and rotting state of affairs in this supposed paradise where many came to seek their fortunes.

There is a multitude of endless bleak, blank and anonymous office blocks and skyscrapers. One of the buildings forms a perch for an oversized telephone, the cord of which links the other blank buildings, highlighting the impersonal nature of the capitalist society.

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Statue of Liberty, Federal Hall, Skyscrapers, Factories, decaying city, Depression-era photographs, Toilet Bowl, Trophy, Roman Columns, Tehuana Dress, Fire, Mae West (American Celebrity), George Washington Statue, Gothic Church, Red Ribbon (suggestive of artery), Dollar sign, buildings, peeling billboards,

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Compositional Devices:

Whole painting:

Radial

Layering

Symmetry

Aerial Perspective

Foreground:

patch work

Background:

Linear Perspective

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Oil and Collage on Masonite.

Masonite is a type of hardboard made of steam-cooked and pressure-molded wood fibres

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My Grandparents, My Parents, and I (Family Tree), 1936

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My Grandparents, My Parents, and I (Family Tree), 1936

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Oil and collage on masonite, 45 × 50 cm. Banco de Mexico and INBAL Mexico