FridaKahloJessicaHearne10373893

AH30080 ART HISTORY DISSERTATION MODULE
Assignment Three: Completed Dissertation
Jessica Hearne 10373893
Tutor: Paula Murphy
Dissertation Title: ‘I paint myself because I am so often alone and I am the subject I
know best.’ - Frida Kahlo. How much of herself did Frida Kahlo put into her work? A
comparison between the self-portraiture and non-self-portraiture of the artist.
Throughout her short yet hectic life, Frida Kahlo painted a large variety of works all
varying in subject matter. A number of these are self-portraits, some are still lives
and others are of a narrative nature. She is regarded as somewhat of a feminist
figure, but this is subject to debate. Indeed, she refused to conform to the typical
ideology of beauty when painting herself, always striving to emphasise her flaws
rather than mask them, but the fact that so much of her work reflects ’…the
emotional upheavals of her dramatic marital relationship with muralist Diego
Rivera,’1
would not be something that would impress the average campaigner for
women’s rights. What is certain is that there is a recurring theme of pain within the
artist’s work; often reflected is Kahlo’s sentimental turmoil not only to do with her
love life, but also with issues such as her infertility, illness and depression. ’Just as
Kahlo’s “illnesses” have been cast as a sort of muse that inspired her to paint, the
process of painting has been codified as her “therapy”.’2
The fact that so many of her
paintings deal with these matters can lead to one thinking that perhaps her
moments of weakness translated into her greatest creative strength. Many critics
have argued that, even in the paintings which do not feature the artist in a literal
sense, Kahlo’s presence is always felt. The purpose of this piece is to discover how
much of herself she poured into her work; was it possible for Kahlo to separate
herself from the subject she was painting, or was it always somehow related to the
artist and her personal experiences?
Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo Calderon was born on 6th
July, 1907, in the
1 Elizabeth Garber, Art Critics on Frida Kahlo: A Comparison of Feminist and Non-Feminist Voices,
from Art Education, Vol. 45, No. 2 (March, 1992), http://www.jstor.org/stable/3193324 (accessed
28/02/2013), p.42
2 Margaret A. Lindauer, Devouring Frida: The Art History and Popular Celebrity of Frida Kahlo, 1999
(Hanover and London), p.54

town of Coyoacan, situated an hour outside of Mexico City. Her father, Wilhelm, was
a Jew of German-Hungarian descent who had moved to Mexico as a young man. He
began to refer to himself as Guillermo after marrying Frida’s mother, Mathilde. She
was a very devout Roman Catholic, and she was to be Guillermo’s second wife. At
the age of six Frida was struck with polio. Her right leg was left much thinner than
her left, and the artist remained highly self-conscious about this for the rest of her
life. As a result she was late starting school, and began to claim she was three years
younger than she actually was so as her classmates would not be aware of her
disfigurement.3
There is, however, another theory behind Kahlo’s change to her year
of birth. Four years after the artist’s death, an inscription was written on her
bedroom wall claiming that she was born here on 7th
July, 1910. It was on this same
year that the Mexican Revolution began, and ‘…since she was a child of the
revolutionary decade…she decided that she and modern Mexico had been born
together.’4
Frida went on to excel in school. She had a great passion for art, yet
originally intended to study medicine. All this, however, came to an abrupt halt in
1925 when she was involved in a very serious bus collision. She suffered numerous
injuries which left her bedridden for a number of months, and she went on to have
multiple operations because of the casualty throughout her life. The incident would
ultimately leave her unable to bear children.5
In the time directly after the accident,
she was confined to her bed and spent much time painting. She had first met Diego
Rivera a few years prior to the bus crash, and it was two years after the event that
she would meet him again. Kahlo impressed the artist with her work, and it wasn’t
long until the pair were married. The couple had a tumultuous relationship, resulting
in a number of extra-marital affairs on both sides, and even divorce and remarriage
between 1939 and 1940. Frida once spoke of her relationship with Rivera, ‘I have
suffered two serious accidents in my life, one in which a streetcar ran over me… The
other accident is Diego.’6
Indeed, the artist’s exploits with her husband proved to be
one of the strongest influences of her art. Herself and her husband had strong ties to
the Mexican communist party, which led to friendships with many political figures,
3 Martha Zamora, Frida Kahlo: The Brush of Anguish, 1990 (London), pp.15-16, 18
4 Hayden Herrera, Frida: The Biography of Frida Kahlo, 2003 (London), p.4
5 Zamora, Frida Kahlo: The Brush of Anguish, pp. 22-23, 26
6 Zamora, Frida Kahlo: The Brush of Anguish, p.37

such as the exiled Leon Trotsky. The final years of Kahlo’s life were filled with pain.
She was hospitalised due to spinal problems, suffered from pneumonia and had to
have part of her right leg amputated. She eventually passed away on 13th
July, 1954,
just a few days after turning forty-seven.7
The format of still life-proved to be a rather intriguing one for Frida Kahlo. There are
around thirty of these paintings surviving within her collection, dating from 1937 up
until 1951, when ’…the still life became…her principal form of expression.’8
The
choice of such subject matter can be attributed to two factors; she was primarily
housebound from her ongoing ill-health, and still life was a ready-made form of
artistic inspiration. The second is much more complex. A fixation with life and death
rose in Europe in the fifteenth century in the aftermath of the Black Death.
Beforehand, the Catholic faith had largely condemned ‘…personal attachments that
might distract from the love of God.’9
Yet, afterwards, the people who survived
began to place more emphasis on material possessions; they had realised that death
could come calling at any moment. Kahlo undoubtedly saw the significance behind
such objects, and her goal was to ‘…probe the insides of fruit and flowers, the organs
hidden beneath the wounded flesh, and the feelings hidden beneath stoic features.’10
An interesting example of this type of genre is Still Life with Parrot and Flag, painted
in the year 1951. This piece can be paralleled with some of her self portraiture from
this period. Both are seen to contain objects which refer to the artist’s Mexican
heritage, such as small Mexican flags and pieces of fruit from her native country.
’Mexican-ness’ was not a trait individual to Kahlo; rather, it was a theory shared with
scholars and students of the Mexican School at this time.11
However, what was
unique was that she used such objects to convey her own thoughts and emotions;
‘Thus, the direct self-portrait was replaced by an indirect portrayal of her moods and
7 Zamora, Frida Kahlo: The Brush of Anguish, p.138
8 Andrea Kettenmann, Still Life with Parrot and Flag, from Frida Kahlo 1907-2007,
2008 (Mexico), p.324
9 Salomon Grimberg, Frida Kahlo’s Still Lives: “I paint flowers so they will not die,”
from Woman’s Art Journal, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Autumn, 2004 - Winter, 2005),
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3566514 (accessed 16/02/2013), p.25
10 Grimberg, Frida Kahlo’s Still Lives: “I paint flowers so they will not die,” p.25
11 Kettenmann, Frida Kahlo 1907-2007, p.327

feelings through symbols.’12
While the composition may seem innocent, Kettenmann
is of the opinion that it has a much deeper significance. Fruits are displayed in pairs,
with one being whole and the other sliced in half; the latter being done seemingly to
represent the outer reproductive parts of the female body. When one analyses the
painting in this way, the banana is clearly a form of masculine phallic symbology.13
Such an emphasis on genitalia can be attributed to the situation Kahlo found herself
in in 1950. Consistent ailments of fever and gangrene in her legs led the artist to
being hospitalised for a year14
, and there is little doubt that her lack of mobility
during this period led to ever-increasing feelings of sexual frustration. What is also
interesting about this piece is the stark contrast in colour. While the fruits, flag and
bird are all painted in warm, bright hues of yellow, red, orange and green, they are
set against a rather dank, dull background. An objective viewpoint would be that this
is simply to make the composition more vivid and aesthetically pleasing, but
Kettenmann believes there to be more; ’The ambivalence between joy and suffering,
pleasure and pain, is also reflected in the contrast between subject and
background…(Kahlo) is clearly expressing her contradictory moods and emotion…’15
Watermelons are a common fruit grown in Mexico, and they also have some
form of cultural significance due to the fact that they are part of the ritual offerings
made to the deceased on the Day of the Dead.16
While they do not feature in …
Parrot and Flag, they are seen in a number of Kahlo’s pieces. These include Long Live
Life (1951-54), Still Life with Watermelons (1953) and The Bride Frightened at Seeing
Life Opened (1943). The artist seemed to be a strong believer in the link between the
watermelon and the longevity of life, particularly seeing as how Long Live Life and
Still Life with Watermelons were created towards the end of Kahlo’s time. The Bride
Frightened at Seeing Life Opened, however, was created during an earlier period,
and when one investigates the visual metaphors present within the piece, it has a
rather different thematic purpose. Watermelons do feature in the composition, but
they are not the centralising aspect. Positioned on the left hand side and then
14 Herrera, Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, p.383
16 Terri Geis, Still Life with Watermelon, from Frida Kahlo 1907-2007, 2008
(Mexico), p.339

creeping into the centre, the two fruits have been cut in a zigzag fashion They show
harsh lines and strong segments broken up by rather wide gaps; with this, ‘…Frida
offers to the observer a glimpse into the terrible territory of lushness, the greed for
more sensuousness, the insatiable desire for symbiotic closeness.’17
There is more
symbology embedded within the composition, all to do with the union, however
uncomfortable or distanced it may be, between male and female. Genitalia is again
expressed through the sliced-open papaya and the bunch of bananas; a grasshopper,
’…known (in mythology) as rather useless, nagging creatures,’18
can be understood to
be some sort of self-portrait of Kahlo. She appears to be trying, in vain, to capture
the attention of the owl, who is thought to be Diego. The coconuts are also thought
to be a male and female pairing.19
What is striking, however, is that all these
partnerships appear to have a rather significant physical distance between them,
which can be explained when one considers the piece in terms of the current events
of Kahlo’s life. This is a painting in which Frida incorporates an experience of an
outsider into one of her works because she can draw parallels with her own life. In
this case, it was the situation of her friend, Jacqueline Lamba, who came to stay with
her after the former had chosen to abandon her marriage; ’Kahlo…could empathise
with Lamba’s predicament, having herself feared separation and leaving Rivera’s
orbit to find her own.’20
The little doll who peers into the watermelon, dressed in a
bridal gown and depicted with fair hair and a rather delicate manner, is thought to
be a representation of Lamba.21
However, Grimberg’s quotation above could also
lead to another conclusion about the doll. It is believed that Kahlo purchased the doll
at a flea market in Paris in 1939, because it reminded her of one that she had owned
as a young girl but had since either been lost or broken; it is not entirely certain
which.22
Perhaps the doll itself is a statement of how vulnerable she felt in her
current situation with Diego, similar to the feelings of helplessness she would have
17 Helga Prignitz-Poda, The Bride Frightened at Seeing Life Opened, from Frida
Kahlo 1907-2007, 2008 (Mexico), p.230
18 Prignitz-Poda, Frida Kahlo 1907-2007, p.230
19 Prignitz-Poda, Frida Kahlo 1907-2007, pp.228-30
and Prignitz-Poda, Frida Kahlo 1907-2007, p.228

felt when the doll was no longer part of her possession as a youth?
As mentioned previously, both Still Life with Watermelon and Long Live Life
(also known by the name Viva la Vida), have a very similar composition and were
painted within the artist‘s final days. She may not have been fully aware of her
imminent mortality when creating the first of the pair, but she certainly was when
painting Viva la Vida; which was so named after the inscription upon the Mexican
flag dug into the watermelon at the centre of the composition. Herrera believes her
last painting to have had much more control than any other, and thinks it to be an
acceptance of the fact that death is near, but also a celebration of the life that the
artist led; ‘It is as if Frida had gathered and focused what was left of her vitality in
order to paint this final statement of alegria…in large capital letters, she wrote her
final salute to life: VIVA LA VIDA.’23
At the end of her life Kahlo felt a mixture between
optimism and pessimism; she had Diego’s love and support and there were also
feelings of hope associated with the Mexican revolution, but she had spent her life in
much pain, both physical and emotional.24
This conflict of feeling at the end of an era
is easily seen in the side-by-side positioning of day and night. The fact that the flag is
in the watermelon is no mere coincidence, given the earlier association of the red-
fleshed fruit with life and vitality. The dove suggests Kahlo is at peace with the world,
however, and that she is accepting of the way in which her life has panned out over
the years. Perhaps such emotion can be attributed to the ‘joy of living’ which Dr.
Farill apparently gave back to Frida following an operation the previous year; a
statement which also explains the mentioning of the doctor within the finished
painting.25
Thus, we once again see that the format of still-life was yet another means
for Kahlo to represent herself.
Almost a third of Kahlo’s work constitutes of self-portraits. There was no
specific time in her life when she did not paint pictures of herself; rather it was a
theme that she continued to return to up until the years leading to her death, when
she became primarily focused on still life paintings. It is relatively simple to see that,
23 Herrera, Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, p.440
24 Luis Rius Caso, Still Life “Long Live Life and Dr. Juan Farill”, from Frida Kahlo
1907-2007, 2008 (Mexico), p.332
25 Rius Caso, Frida Kahlo 1907-2007, p.334

in this particular medium of artwork, she has certainly poured very much of herself
in to them. In this case, however, the more pressing question is why she created so
many self-portraits; was it a form of arrogance, or merely a troubled young woman
seeking to express her innermost thoughts and feelings?
The artistic form of portraiture has been in existence since the days of
antiquity, but it’s function and meaning has changed dramatically over time. Up until
the end of the Middle Ages, self-portraits were used as a form of signature, and
portraits of others were designed as a show of status and power. When the mirror
was perfected at the dawn of the Renaissance, however, self-portraits took on an
entirely new purpose; ‘…the portrait became a vehicle for affirming the singularity of
one’s own personality. Moreover, the careful attention paid to the face, a mirror to
the mind, revealed the psychological dimensions of the sitter.’26
This statement can
certainly be applied to the collection of Kahlo’s self-portraits in the very least. The
first of her self-portraits is Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress. Painted in the summer of
1926 as a gift to her then-lover, Alejandro Gomez Arias, it was created as ’…a means
to alleviate pain, trauma, and boredom…’ caused not only by the breakdown of the
couple’s relationship, but also by the artist’s recent convalescence.27
It is considered
to be Kahlo’s first ‘momentous’ work of art, and, like almost all of her self-portraits,
it was intended to strengthen the emotional bond between herself and the current
object of her affection. Thus, the painting can be thought of as ‘…a kind of visual
entreaty, a love offering…,’28
and certainly one that proved to be successful, if only
temporarily. In the years following the Mexican Revolution, people began to
embrace their culture as having combined native and European roots. Kahlo had
read the works of such classical writers as Euripides, Plato and Homer, and naturally
turned to the likes of France and Italy as initial sources of artistic inspiration. Indeed,
Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress has evidence of Renaissance and Mannerist
tendencies.29
However, the artist’s Italian influences in this piece were not purely
academic. During the time she painted this work, Alejandro had been travelling
around Europe and the pair had kept in contact through letters. He had made a
26 Sarah M. Lowe, Universe Series on Women Artists: Frida Kahlo, 1991 (New York), p.34
27 Robin Richmond, Painters & Places: Frida Kahlo in Mexico, 1994 (San Francisco), p.80
28 Herrera, Frida: The Biography of Frida Kahlo, p.60
29 Emma Dexter, The Universal Dialectics of Frida Kahlo, from Emma Dexter and Tanya Barson
(eds.), Frida Kahlo, 2005 (London), p.14

particular comment about Italian women which stuck with Kahlo; that they were so
charming that it was as though Botticelli himself had painted them. 30
It is thought
that she kept Botticelli’s style in mind while painting this, in the hope that her lover
would not leave her for one of these girls she feared more beautiful. The work was
also inspired by Eleanor of Toledo, a painting by the Mannerist Agnolo di Cosimo
(better known by the name ’Bronzino’) from the year 1540.31
While this Italian
influence is important to bear in mind, it cannot be said that she stuck to this style
solely. Kahlo worked hard to imprint her own originality on to Self-Portrait in a
Velvet Dress, she paints herself ‘…as a romantic European princess…this contrasts
vividly with her later self-image as (an) Aztec queen. But the piercing intensity of her
gaze from under her characteristic swallow-brows dramatically contradicts the
languor of the Renaissance pose.’32
When looking at this first of many self-portraits,
one is unsure whether her facial expression is one of condescension or susceptibility.
While the dark background, elongated neck and refined clothing suggest the former,
the theory is contradicted by the revealing nature of her dress and the paleness of
her skin, thus fuelling the proposal that Kahlo wanted to portray herself as rather
vulnerable and naïve.33
Ultimately, the portrait shows the beginnings of perfecting ’…
a style that allows her to hide her emotional life behind a mask-like face.’34
As mentioned previously, much of the artist’s work was influenced by her
chaotic relationship with Diego Rivera. A number of her self-portraits reflect this,
including such works as Self-Portrait as a Tehuna (also known by the rather apt name
of Diego on My Mind) from the year 1943, Diego and I (1949) and The Love Embrace
of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), Me, Diego and Mr Xolotl. The latter is more of a
compositional type than a self-portrait, but can still be regarded as a self-portrait in
the looser sense of the term as it almost centres around a representation of the
painter. Diego Rivera later made the following claim in his autobiography: ’During
the two years we lived apart, Frida turned out some of her best work, subliminating
her anguish in painting.’35
One of Kahlo’s most famous self-portraits was completed
30 Tanya Barson, ‘All Art is at Once Surface and Symbol,’A Frida Kahlo Glossary, from Emma Dexter
and Tanya Barson (eds.), Frida Kahlo, 2005 (London), p.58
31 Lowe, Universe Series on Women Artists: Frida Kahlo, pp.34-6
32 Richmond, Painters & Places: Frida Kahlo in Mexico, p.80
33 Garber, Art Critics on Frida Kahlo: A Comparison of Feminist and Non-Feminist Voices, p.42
34 Lowe, Universe Series on Women Artists: Frida Kahlo, p.36

in December, 1939, on the very day her divorce from Diego came through; it is titled
The Two Fridas. As the name suggests, it features two representations of the artist
but in very different circumstances; the Frida on the right is the one that Diego loves,
and the one on the left is the one that he abandoned. A common feature of her
portraiture is to see tears rolling down her cheeks, but what is interesting about this
piece is that tears are nowhere to be seen; this was perhaps the most emotionally
turbulent time of her life, yet the expressions on both faces of the artist are very
much neutral. Instead, she uses other means to signify her pain, notably the stormy
sky above the sitting figures.36
The pair sit on a bench, their hands clasped, in poses
that mirror each other. This demonstrates that they are indeed the same person, but
the differences in their outward appearance suggest one person at two very
different periods. The Frida on the left wears a white Victorian gown, her heart torn
open, and a pair of scissors in her hands severs the artery which connects the two.
Garber quotes Gloria Orenstein, who had a very interesting perspective on the
meaning behind this artery, when she mentions The Two Fridas in her article.
Orenstein was of the opinion that it represented Kahlo’s numerous physical and
emotional ties; ’…these strings are concrete representations of the spiritual and
psychological bonds between her artistic expression and the traumas related to the
biological crises of female sexuality that she portrayed…’37
The theme of a failed
maternal purpose does not end here. Her dress is bloodstained; a simple of not only
her emotional pain, but also perhaps, due to it’s positioning, a symbol of Kahlo’s
numerous miscarriages.38
It is no accident that this Frida was placed on the left hand-
side; much of the artist’s work contained subtle Christian representation, thus
making this Frida synonymous with being on the ‘evil’ left. The figure on the right
hand side is dressed in the Tehuna style; her skin is ever so slightly darker and her
heart is whole. In her hand is a portrait of Rivera as a child; alluding to the fact that
Frida saw him not only as her lover, but as a child that needed taking care of.39
The
minute details of this miniature portrait are rather worthy of note; not only is it egg-
like in shape, but it is held near the genital regions, and the artery protruding from
36 Raquel Tibol, The Two Fridas, from Frida Kahlo 1907-2007, 2008 (Mexico), p.203
37 Garber, Art Critics on Frida Kahlo: A Comparison of Feminist and Non-Feminist Voices, p.44
38 Isabel Alcantara and Sandra Egnolff, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, 1999 (Munich), p.69
39 Tibol, Frida Kahlo 1907-2007, p.203

the end represents not only an umbilical cord, but also the moment when a sperm
cell fertilises the egg. Thus, ‘…Diego’s portrait seems to stand for both a lost baby
and a lost lover.’40
Henry Ford Hospital is yet another one of Kahlo’s self portraits but in a much
looser sense of the term. It combines self-portraiture with a surrealist composition; it
does not deal solely with physical representation, but also with recent emotional
trauma. This ’…bloody and terrifying..’41
image was not unique; rather, it was to be
the first of many. Painted after a life-threatening miscarriage in 1932, it is an image
of pure pain and suffering. This miscarriage (for it was only one of many) lasted for a
month; the entire time of which the artist remained in hospital. Kahlo had longed for
Diego’s child since she first became infatuated with him in her teens, and had been
devastated by the effects the 1925 bus crash had had on her fertility. Adding to this
was the culture in which she lived at the time. Not only were her own maternal
instincts especially strong, but Mexican social conduct did not differentiate between
femininity and motherhood. Henry Ford Hospital, along with her multiple paintings
of childbirth, miscarriages, abortions and even of cradling an overgrown Rivera in her
arms, are all a form of conveying ‘…a lifelong despair at barrenness.’42
The centre
piece to this painting is Frida herself, lying naked on a hospital bed rather
gruesomely covered in blood. A single tear runs down the side of her face, and her
stomach still appears swollen from the ill-fated pregnancy. The proportions are not
correct; the bed is much too large in relation to the figure of the artist. However, this
is thought to be deliberate in order to make her appear more vulnerable. The
background is the city of Detroit, where Kahlo and Rivera were living at the time. She
was feeling increasingly distant from her husband, thus explaining why the image of
the city appears so very far away. Connected to Frida through the red ribbons
(thought to be veins) held in her hand are three objects, which tell the story of her
ordeal, however we only know the significance of five of them. The evasive sixth
object is the machine that sits on the bottom left of the painting; it’s function has
never been revealed. However, it is thought to have been included to signify that it

was a machine of sorts that caused her injuries throughout her life.43
All of the
symbols appear to be much larger than Kahlo herself, perhaps to signify how trivial
and powerless she felt over the unfortunate events that occurred, not just in 1932,
but leading up to this moment. The foetus, strategically placed above the artist and
at the centre of the composition, is very clearly the child that never was. To the left
of the foetus is a medical diagram of the female reproductive system at the time of
conception; it was Frida’s own idea of what her own insides should be like.44
In the
bottom right is a pelvis, the feature of her body which caused the trauma of the
miscarriage, and, beside it, a wilted orchid given to her by Diego; the bruising colour
of the flower designed to reflect the pain the couple experienced. Last is the snail in
the top right-hand corner. Perhaps a little out of place at first, but closer inspection
shows that it signifies the long, drawn-out nature of the ordeal.45
This piece is a
visual representation of personal suffering; ‘Frida does not paint, she attacks, she
throws her entrails in our faces, she hates herself because she failed, because she is
not a mother…’46
Overall, Kahlo approached self-portraiture in both the traditional and
surrealist format. Her representations of herself became increasingly focused on
psychological features alongside physical ones; Self Portrait in a Velvet Dress is
perhaps the one out of all that portrays the least about her state of mind. As her
career continued, painting herself and her feelings seemed to fuse in to a single
purpose for the troubled artist.
Aside from the aforementioned period of still-lives in Kahlo’s later years, it is
highly unusual to come across one of her paintings that has no physical
representation of the artist present within. They do, however, despite being small in
number, exist. It proves rather fascinating to search for personal traits of the artist
within such pieces; was it possible for Frida to entirely detach herself from her
subject matter, or can she always be found somewhere beneath the surface?
Shortly after the couple’s return from Detroit, Rivera embarked on a year-
46 Elena Poniatowska, Henry Ford Hospital, from Frida Kahlo 1907-2007, 2008 (Mexico), p.134

long affair with none other than Kahlo’s sister, Christina. When she discovered the
infidelity, the heartache the artist felt was unbearable, for she referred to Christina
not as her sister, but as her closest friend. She attempted to turn to art to heal her
emotional wounds, but found this betrayal far too real to portray in a literal sense. At
around the same time as this incident, a rather horrifying occurrence was sweeping
the news. A man had discovered his young lover had been unfaithful, and had
retaliated in a drunken rage by brutally slaying her within their home. At his trial, the
murderer’s defence had been: “But I only gave her a few small nips!”47
Within this
line we have the title of one of Kahlo’s most graphic works, A Few Small Nips, which
is written on a white banner held by two doves across the top of the painting. Within
this story the artist had found exactly the subject matter she had been searching for;
she emphasised with the tragic victim due to the fact that she felt ’murdered by
life’.48
Here was a means to aesthetically portray her own ordeal without having to
look into the faces of those who had caused it.
The perspective within this piece is somewhat haphazard, but that is not the
issue that Kahlo was focused on. Instead, the viewer’s gaze is drawn directly to the
horrific scene of the homicide within the small room. The slaughtered female lies
naked on the bed, her wounds clearly visible and blood pouring from every tear of
the flesh. The blood does not escape any surface; it stains the clothing of the rather
impassive murderer and extends into the frame. Upon completion, Kahlo physically
stabbed the frame to further accentuate the idea of ‘…just a few small nips,’ but this
could have also been a demonstration of the rage she felt at the betrayal of her
sister and husband.49
Herrera likens the position of the victim to that of Christ after
his crucifixion; her limbs are spread far apart, and her palms are bleeding profusely.
The colouring of the yellow-green floor is deliberate, as Kahlo believed the colour to
represent ‘…insanity, sickness, fear.’50
It is commonly thought that the scene is
meant to signify the hurt inflicted on Frida by her wayward husband, the stab
wounds being a visual metaphor for the emotional ones she was forced to endure.
48 Dina Comisarenco Mirkin, To Paint the Unspeakable: Mexican Female Artists’Iconography of the
1930s and Early 1940s, from Woman’s Art Journal, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Spring - Summer, 2008),
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20358143 (accessed 24/03/2013), p.29
49 Mirkin, To Paint the Unspeakable: Mexican Female Artists’Iconography of the 1930s and Early
1940s, p. 29

However, Kahlo added a more political aspect to this piece. Domestic violence was a
sad truth in the artist’s Mexico, and one that had agitated her for a number of years.
It was not treated as an overly serious issue in the country at the time, and in many
cases excuses had been made for the man guilty of the crime. ‘Implicit is her strong
opposition to the moral biases assigned to the violence of women, her protest
against the unfairness of the social dictates used to justify gender violence.’51
The turbulent life of the unsuccessful Broadway actress Dorothy Hale would
have been of great interest to Frida Kahlo. Both women had rather destitute
romantic lives involving heartbreak and unsuccessful relationships; they both
struggled to become a stars in their own right and endured a number of traumatic
incidents in-between. In addition, Hale and Kahlo found themselves afflicted by
depression. It comes of little surprise, therefore, to learn that the pair became
friends during Kahlo’s stay in America. However, the camaraderie came to an abrupt
and dramatic end on 21st
October, 1938, when Hale tragically committed suicide by
throwing herself from her apartment in Hampshire House, New York. A mutual
friend of the pair - the diplomat, Claire Boothe Luce - asked Kahlo to paint a portrait
of the actress to commemorate her death, with the intention of presenting it to
Hale’s mother. However, when she saw the completed work, she was horrified by
what she deemed to be an inappropriately cheerful treatment of a terrible tragedy,
and insisted that her name be removed from the banner underneath.52
It was very
rare that the artist would receive commissioned work, and this perhaps explains her
approach to the subject matter. Prignitz-Poda believes that Kahlo used this piece to
demonstrate her own personal feelings towards the death of her friend.53
However,
given the rather negative opinion of viewers at the time of completion, it may
perhaps have been more tactful for Kahlo to attempt to remove herself from the
subject matter, as it was sorely misinterpreted. The painting shows similar traits to
The Two Fridas in that there are two forms of Hale; the theatrically dressed woman
who both jumps from the window and lies on the pavement beneath, and the figure
in the blue dress. The latter is the Dorothy who could no longer stand having to put
51 Mirkin, To Paint the Unspeakable: Mexican Female Artists’Iconography of the 1930s and Early
1940s, p. 29
53 Helga Prignitz-Poda, The Suicide of Dorothy Hale, from Frida Kahlo 1907-2007, 2008 (Mexico),
p.198

on an act in real life; her figure is wrapped up in the clouds, and she looks out of the
painting as if wondering why nobody seemed to come to her aid when she was in
dire need. Shattered by the downtrodden turn her existence has taken over the
years, this is a representation of the actress’s soul, who desires nothing more than to
escape. The former is thought to be Hale in her theatrical mode; stylishly dressed
with immaculate makeup. Indeed, one would even assume that the blood from
underneath the corpse is fake, as the body has no visual wounds. Her eyes once
again meet the gaze of the viewer: ‘…she (Hale) looks at her audience - will it
applaud? It is the public Dorothy who is lying there without really understanding that
she had to die in real life.’54
Kahlo’s treatment of the theme is also a window in to the
artist’s mind; it reveals her rather distorted mental state, and her own personal
associations between sex and mortality. The legs of the corpse are spread wide open
in a pose that can only be described as erotically suggestive, and Hale’s gaze appears
to have an almost seductive quality. In addition to this, some art historians have seen
the background structure of Hampshire House to be somewhat phallic in nature.
Overall, the painting is far too vibrant for its melancholy subject matter; ‘…what
appears to be a scene of horrific violence actually was more to do with Frida’s own
sexuality.’55
Thus, when considering both A Few Small Nips and The Suicide of
Dorothy Hale, Kahlo separating herself from the nature of her work seems rather
impossible.
The life of Frida Kahlo was one almost entirely consumed by grief and pain. In
response to the thesis proposed at the start of this essay, the answer is simply no; it
was not possible for the artist to ever truly separate herself from her work, and her
presence is always felt regardless of the aesthetic features of each individual piece.
Although she is loosely associated with the surrealist movement, every theme
behind her works are very realistic indeed; infertility, emotional upheaval and
physical deformity. Art proved to be a rather effective means of releasing her inner
turmoil; she did not paint herself because she had no better inspiration, but because
she was consumed by the suffering that continued to plague her throughout her
54 Prignitz-Poda, Frida Kahlo 1907-2007, p.198

existence. To quote Kahlo herself:
“They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn’t. I don’t paint dreams or nightmares, I
paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I
paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.”
Final Word Count (Excluding Title, Footnotes and Bibliography): 5,445
Bibliography
Isabel Alcantara and Sandra Egnolff, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Munich, Prestel
Verlag, 1999.
Tanya Barson, ”All Art is at Once Surface and Symbol,” A Frida Kahlo Glossary, from
Emma Dexter and Tanya Barson (eds.), Frida Kahlo. London, Tate Publishing, 2005.
Dina Comisarenco Mirkin, To Paint the Unspeakable: Mexican Female Artists’
Iconography of the 1930s and Early 1940s, from Woman’s Art Journal, Vol. 29, No. 1
(Spring - Summer, 2008), published by Old City Publishing Inc., pp.21-32.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20358143 (accessed 24/03/2013)
Emma Dexter, The Universal Dialectics of Frida Kahlo, from Emma Dexter and Tanya
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Publishing, 1991.
Elena Poniatowska, Henry Ford Hospital, from Frida Kahlo 1907-2007. Mexico,
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1907-2007. Mexico, Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, 2008.
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Mexico, Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, 2008.
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Luis Rius Caso, Still Life “Long Live Life and Dr. Juan Farill”, from Frida Kahlo 1907-
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de Bellas Artes, 2008.
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