Question

Frida Kahlo


The Mexican painter Frida Kahlo died in
1954. By that time, she had completed more
than 200 paintings. During her lifetime, she had
shown her work in Mexico, the United States
and Europe. Still, she didn't become known as
one of the world's great artists until the 1980s.
Now her self-portraits are often seen on
postcards and in calendars.
Many of her paintings are self-portraits.
Kahlo was from a well-to-do family, with
ancestors from both Europe and the Mayan
Indians of Mexico. In her portraits she
addressed this mix of cultures. She dressed in
the style of the Indian peasant women. She wore
bright dresses and elaborate hairstyles and
headdresses. Her work also combines elements
from both the Spanish and the Mayan Indian art
traditions.
Her paintings are not much larger than an
8.5-by-11-inch sheet of paper. They are intense,
however. She often used vivid and disturbing
symbols, such as a person with her heart
exposed. She used this imagery to show the
emotional pain she felt about tragic events of her
life.
Indeed, she shocked Paris, which was
surprising since Paris was the capital of
outrageous art then. She had been invited to put
on a show of her work there. She submitted 34
paintings, but only two were accepted. Still,
Kahlo triumphed in Paris. The Louvre, that most
famous of art museums, bought one of these
paintings. It was a self-portrait with an elaborate
border of flowers. She was the first Mexican
artist to be represented in its collection.

Answer 1

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