Guillermo Kahlo was Frida Kahlo's father, born in Germany with debated Jewish/Hungarian or German ancestry. He moved to Mexico in 1891 and married Frida's mother Matilde Calderon y Gonzalez, a devout Catholic of indigenous Mexican and Spanish descent, after his first wife died. Frida was born in 1907 and at age 6 contracted polio. In 1925 she was in a devastating bus accident that left her disabled, after which she began painting to cope with pain. Her works reflected her physical and emotional suffering, as well as the turbulent relationship with her husband Diego Rivera, whom she divorced and remarried.

2. Guillermo Kahlo
Father, born Carl Wilhelm
Kahlo in Pforzheim, Germany.
Ancestry debated between
Jewish/Hungarian and German
Lutheran. Sailed to Mexico in
1891 and changed his name to
its Spanish equivalent. He later
married Frida’s mother after
the death of his first wife. She
is his Third daughter.

3. Matilde Calderon y Gonzalez
Mother, devout catholic of
indigenous Mexican and Spanish
descent. She was born in Mexico city
to her Mother Isabel Gonzalez y
Gonzalez from the family of a
Spanish General and Her father,
Antonio Gonzalez of Indigenous
“Indian” descent. She shortly
married Guillermo Kahlo after the
death of his first wife in childbirth.
The unhappy marriage provided
fuel behind Frida’s “coming into” art.

6. - Born in 1907, Frida Kahlo was 3 years
old at the beginning of the Mexican
Revolution.
- At age 6, She contracted Polio.
- In 1922, she enrolled at the
Preparatoria (Mexico’s Premiere
school)
- She boxed and other sports during her
childhood
- At the Preparatoria, she joined a gang
and fell in love with the leader:
Alejandro Gomez Arias

9. In 1925, Frida Kahlo was in a bus accident that
put a pole through her spine. This resulted in
long term hospitalization and numerous major
surgeries. As a way to display her pain, she
began to paint.

13. “Two Fridas”

14. Facts
Two Fridas (1939)
Oil on Canvas, 68 ¼ x 68 in
1. This painting was completed shortly after
her divorce.
2. One is the traditional Frida in Tehuana
costume, with a broken heart, sitting next to an
independent, modern dressed Frida
3. The stormy sky filled with agitated clouds
reflect Frida's inner turmoil

15. “The Bus”

16. Facts
The Bus (1929)
Oil on Canvas, 21 x 10 in
1. This painting is a depiction of the scene
minutes prior to Frida’s horrifying bus
accident.
2. In the painting, people from different classes
are painted as passengers to represent the
class differences at that time.
3. The boy is looking out the window at a shop
called “La Risa” (the laugh) as a part of Frida’s
dark sense of humor.

17. “Without Hope”

18. Facts
Without Hope (1945)
Oil on Canvas, 11 x 14 in
1. The painting represents being force fed as
prescribed by her doctor in the hospital.
2. The wooden structure used to hold her
canvas but now holds her pain.
3. The sun and the moon in the background
represents the Mexican landscape

19. Personal Life
Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera were married in
1929, divorced in 1940, and then married again
that same year. They had a very strange
relationship and at one point during Frida’s life
Diego slept with her sister. Both Frida and Diego
had numerous affairs through their marriage
but held a strange respect and understanding
with each other. They were often referred as
the beauty and the beast.