FRIDA KAHLO, her quotes on painting art and life with Diego Rivera & biography facts
Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954), her quotes on painting art, portraits and life with Diego. Frida Kahlo describes her very individualistic painting art, the many self-portraits and her life story with Diego Rivera, the famous Mexican mural painter; Frida created very personal surrealistic artworks. Many of her paintings express her emotional situation of the moment or the way she liked to present herself to others.
* At the bottom more life information & biography facts & art links for the Mexican woman-artist Frida / Frieda Kahlo.
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Frida Kahlo: ‘Roots / Raices’, 1943 |
Frida Kahlo her quotes on portraits, painting art and her life with Rivera
– I was fascinated by Papa’s studio (he was photographer, fh). I would help him wash, crop and press photos and afterwards sell them, when we were poor. When I was in Prepa, (following college, fh) they would send me to help my father when he had epileptic attacks. After school I would go to his office, which was downtown, and accompany him everywhere. I would also do my homework there, and he would help me. I remember the fear that Papa’s epileptic attacks make me feel. Christina and I would hide under the bed (9 September 1950)
* Frida Kahlo (Frieda), biography facts in artist quotes on art, paintings, her self-portraits and life with Diego Rivera; source: Chapter ‘My life’, in ”Song of herself”; interviews by Olga Campos / ed. & translation Salomon Grimberg; Merrell London, New York, 2008, p. 63 (famous Mexican woman painter artist, making symbolic / surrealist paintings, drawings and pictures from personal life; more biography facts and history information at the bottom)
– I was really ugly ( circa 8 a 10 years old, fh) and had an admiration complex for Christi (her beautiful sister, fh) They sent us tot the ous of senora Maria a Campos for instruction. … …I asked about the mysteries of the Bible, and I think I behaved badly so they sent me to a retreat. It was the usual thing: “to dedicate oneself mor to God”… …it was a house where one spent about fifteen days… …I asked the priest so many questions about how Christ was born, and was the virgin really a virgin, that they threw me out. (9 September 1950)
* Frida Kahlo (Frieda), biography facts in artist quotes on art, paintings, her self-portraits and life with Diego Rivera; source: Chapter ‘My life’, in ”Song of herself”; interviews by Olga Campos / ed. & translation Salomon Grimberg; Merrell London, New York, 2008, p. 64.
– I remember the first time I was sick. I had gon to play with a boy, Luis Léon, and omn the patio he threw a wooden log at my foot, and this was the pretext they used at home when my leg began to grow thin. I remember they said that it was a white tumor or paralysis. I missed a lot of school (nine months in bed Frida spent, and and at seven she wore (polio) booties, fh) I do not remember a lot, but I continued jumping, only not with the right leg anymore. I developed a horrible complex, and t hide my leg I wore thick wool socks uo to the knee, with bandages underneath. This happened when I was sevebn years old, and my papa and my mama begon to spoil me a lot and to love me more. The foot leaned to the side, and I limped a little. This was during the period when I had my imaginary friend. (9 September 1950)
* Frida Kahlo (Frieda), biography facts in artist quotes on art, paintings, her self-portraits and life with Diego Rivera; source: Chapter ‘My life’, in ”Song of herself”; interviews by Olga Campos / ed. & translation Salomon Grimberg; Merrell London, New York, 2008, p. 65.
– This was during the period when I had my imaginary friend I would look out of the small glass panes of the window and fill them with steam. Then, I would draw a little window and go out through it. Opposite our house, there was a milk store that was named Pinzon, and I would travel from the little window through the “o” in Pinzon, and from there into the centre of the earth, where I had my friend, and we would dance and play… …I do not remember my friend’s house, and she had no name. She was like me in age. She had no face. The truth is, I do not remember if she had a face or not, and she was very lively. I could not describe her. (9 September 1950)
* Frida Kahlo (Frieda), biography facts in artist quotes on art, paintings, her self-portraits and life with Diego Rivera; source: Chapter ‘My life’, in ”Song of herself”; interviews by Olga Campos / ed. & translation Salomon Grimberg; Merrell London, New York, 2008, pp. 65-67.
– I first met Diego |(Diego Rivera, her later husband) while he was painting the amphitheater (the amphitheater at the Escuela National Preparatoria, when Rivera was painting ‘ La Créación’ during 1922 -1923) and I would really cherish going to see him paint. Orozco (famous Mexican painter also, fh) was also painting in the Prepa, and I remember one time a group of kids wanted to scratch the paintings of Diego and Orozco… …Every day we went for ice cream at a stand opposite the law school… …Sometimes Diego himself would pass by, and we would tease him. One day they asked me who I wanted to marry, and I said I would not marry, but I did want to have a child by Diego Rivera. – 27 October 1950
* Frida Kahlo (Frieda), biography facts in artist quotes on art, paintings, her self-portraits and life with Diego Rivera; source: Chapter ‘My life’, in ”Song of herself”; interviews by Olga Campos / ed. & translation Salomon Grimberg; Merrell London, New York, 2008, p. 71.
– I was already interested in painting when I was about twelve. I was about fifteen when I began to draw. I have the first drawing, a self-portrait that I did in 1925 (in reality she did and gave this self-portrait two years later in 1927 to a grade-school friend and wrote above her drawn head: “Here I am sending you my portrait, so you will remember me”, fh) I began to paint after the (bus, fh) accident, I made the self-portrait with the clouds (1926, fh) and the portraits of Adriana Kahlo, Lira, Alicia Galant, Christina Kahlo and Agustin Olmedo. All, more or less, are from the same period. With the last ones, I was wearing the cast corset (because of the injury by the bus accident in 1925 with her boy-friend Gomez arias), fh) I would get out of the bed and paint at night. (1950)
* Frida Kahlo (Frieda), biography facts in artist quotes on art, paintings, her self-portraits and life with Diego Rivera; source: Chapter ‘My Painting’, in ”Song of herself”; interviews by Olga Campos / ed. & translation Salomon Grimberg; Merrell London, New York, 2008, p. 73.
– Papa painted small landscapes by the river in Coyoacán, and copied sentimental paintings in watercolour and oil. Afterwards, he gave me a little box of paints that belonged to him. Ángel Salas gave me a small book that told me how to prepare the canvases, and I made them smooth, smooth. The courtship with Gómez Arias lasted from 1922 until 1925, when the bus crushed us both. Gómez Arias brought me books on painting and painters from Europe. These were the first books on art that fell into my hands. (1950)
* Frida Kahlo (Frieda), biography facts in artist quotes on art, paintings, her self-portraits and life with Diego Rivera; source: Chapter ‘My Painting’, in ”Song of herself”; interviews by Olga Campos / ed. & translation Salomon Grimberg; Merrell London, New York, 2008, p. 73.
– José Clemente Orozco and I would travel on the same trolley from Coyoacán to Mexico City, and I would carry his papers. We became pals, and I invited him to the house. I had painted four or five things when he visited, and he gave me a hug and sais I had a lot of talent, and he chatted on about the horrors of Diego. There was beginning to be talk about Diego; that he had returned from Russia and was giving talks on on Russian theather and art. I would go to hear him. Afterwards, he began to paint at the Prepa. and later at the Secretaríade Educación (murals?, fh). I was studying at the Prepa, but the (bus, fh) accident (in 1925, fh) messed me up. (1950)
* Frida Kahlo (Frieda), biography facts in artist quotes on art, paintings, her self-portraits and life with Diego Rivera; source: Chapter ‘My Painting’, in ”Song of herself”; interviews by Olga Campos / ed. & translation Salomon Grimberg; Merrell London, New York, 2008, pp. 73-74.
– I was studying at the Prepa (in 1925, the Preparatoria in Mexico City, fh), but the (bus, fh) accident messed me up. I returned to school, but I felt very sore and had little strength. I took my paintings to Diego, and he liked them a lot, most of all the self-portrait. But of the rest he told me that I was influenced by Doctor Atl (a Mexican painter and revolutionary, fh) and by Montenegro, and that I should try to paint whatever I wanted without being influenced by anyone else. That impressed me a lot, and I began to paint that I believed in. then the friendship and almost courtship with Diego began. I would go to see him paint in the afternoon, and afterwards he would take me home by bus or in a Fordcito – a little Ford that he had – and he would kiss me. (1950)
* Frida Kahlo (Frieda), biography facts in artist quotes on art, paintings, her self-portraits and life with Diego Rivera; source: Chapter ‘My Painting’, in ”Song of herself”; interviews by Olga Campos / ed. & translation Salomon Grimberg; Merrell London, New York, 2008, p. 74.
– One Sunday, Diego came to the house to see my paintings and critiqued all of them in a very clear manner, and he told me all the possibilities he saw in them. Then I painted two or three things, which are around the house, that to me seem very influenced by him (circa 1928, fh). They are portraits of thirteen- or fourteen-year-old kids… … In 1929, I joined the communist Party, I got married to Diego, and I had my first abortion. In that year I painted a portrait of Cristina Moya… …and other drawings that Morillo Safa (her main patron, fh) owns. The unfinished (self-, fh) portrait of my first abortion was my first Surrealist painting (‘Frida and the Caesarean’ she painted in 1929, fh) but not completely. I have it. (1950)
* Frida Kahlo (Frieda), biography facts in artist quotes on art, paintings, her self-portraits and life with Diego Rivera; source: Chapter ‘My Painting’, in ”Song of herself”; interviews by Olga Campos / ed. & translation Salomon Grimberg; Merrell London, New York, 2008, p. 74.
– We moved from the house on Reforma (street, fh) to Coyoacán, and that had an enormous influence on me. How we painted the house and the Mexican furniture, all that influenced my painting a lot. While still on Reforma, I painted a self-portrait (‘Self-portrait, Time Flies’, 1929, fh) that is owned by Morillo Safa. Once in Coyoacán I began to make paintings with backgrounds and Mexican things in them. I painted the portraits of Hale’s sister… …and the one of Diego, which I did not finish (this painting is lost and was never documented before, fh) Those three paintings, who knows where they are. Mirillo Safa has the third self-portrait (Self-portrait of 1930, fh), showing me bald and sitting in a cane chair. (1950)
* Frida Kahlo (Frieda), biography facts in artist quotes on art, paintings, her self-portraits and life with Diego Rivera; source: Chapter ‘My Painting’, in ”Song of herself”; interviews by Olga Campos / ed. & translation Salomon Grimberg; Merrell London, New York, 2008, p. 73.
Frida Kahlo (Frieda), short biography facts about life with Diego Rivera and surrealist painting
….when Frida Kahlo was about seven she started to suffer poliomyelitis and limped a little with one leg. When she was 22, she was involved with her boy-friend of that moment in a bus-accident and was for three months in the hospital, to recover from multiple fractures to her back. Then she wrote: ’I am beginning to grow accustomed to suffering’. A line which would cover a great deal of her life.
By July 1932 Frida started to paint a visual diary of her life, and began with the pivotal ‘Frida and the Abortion’ in 1932.
A most fruitful period was starting in 1939 when she produced major works in response tot Rivera’s termination of their relationship.
Kahlo was then admired strongly by the French Surrealists who recognized the Surreal in her little paintings; she herself however kept an independent position in art. Kahlo was exhibiting that period in New York and Paris; when coming home in Mexico City her husband Diego Rivera (the famous muralist painter) welcomed her with his wish to divorce. Later in December 1940 they re-married. In 1946 Frida’s health took an irreversible turn for the worse and she painted The Little Deer’ her self-portrait as a wounded stag. On a photograph she gave Diego she wrote: ‘I am a poor little deer’. And in a note, sent together with the painting to the owners she expressed: ‘I cannot be fixed’.
In 1947 Olga Campos met Frida Kahlo for the first time as a young woman student in psychology and she started to visit the Rivera’s home frequently whre she became familiar with the family-life of Frida & Diego Rivera. During Frida’s illness in the following years the two women spent a lot of time together and grew closer. Late in 1948 Frida began having trouble with her back and a surgical implant in the spine was suggested. Some months before the next hospital-period Olga Campos carried out a battery of psychological tests on Frida, and dictated Frida’s auto-biography; many of the next quotes are taken from these texts.
With the surgical implant Frida’s health was improved temporarily, but a few years later her leg had to be amputated. In the summer of 1954 Frida died.
Frida Kahlo (Frieda); art links for biography facts & information about art and life of the Mexican woman artist
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