<Archive Obituary> Frida Kahlo, Artist, Wife Of Diego Rivera
Bill Schenley
MEXICO CITY, July 13 (AP)
Frida Kahlo, wife of Diego Rivera, the noted painter, was
found dead in her home today. Her age was 44. She had
been suffering from cancer for several years.
She also was a painter and also had been active in leftist
causes. She made her last public appearance in a wheel
chair at a meeting here in support of the now ousted
regime of Communist- backed President Jacobo Arbenz
Guzman of Guatemala.
Frida Kahlo began painting in 1926 while obliged to lie in
bed during convalescence from injuries suffered in a bus
accident. Not long afterward she showed her work to
Diego Rivera, who advised, "go on painting." They were
married in 1929, began living apart in 1939, were reunited
in 1941.
Usually classed as a surrealist, the artist had no special
explanation for her methods. She said only: "I put on the
canvas whatever comes into my mind." She gave
one-woman shows in Mexico City, New York and
elsewhere, and is said to have been the first woman artist
to sell a picture to the Louvre.
Some of her pictures shocked beholders. One showed her
with her hands cut off, a huge bleeding heart on the
ground nearby, and on either side of her an empty dress.
This was supposed to reveal how she felt when her
husband went off alone on a trip. Another self-portrait
presented the artist as a wounded deer, still carrying the
shafts of nine arrows.
A year ago, too weak to stand for more than ten minutes,
she sat daily at her easel, declaring: "I am happy to be alive
as long as I can paint."
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More on Frida Kahlo:
http://members.aol.com/fridanet/fridabio.htm
http://members.aol.com/fridanet/artwork.htm
http://www.fbuch.com/fridaby.htm
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/kahlo_frida.html
Frida Kalo's [rumored] lovers: