Frida Kahlo was born Magdalena Carmen Frieda

Kahlo y Calderon on July 6, 1907, in her parents' house

in Coyoacan, Mexico a suburb of

Mexico City.

Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress

1926

• Frida Kahlo lived between 1907 and 1954 in a time of incredible worldwide movements and changes. The Mexican Revolution occurred just three years after she was born.

• A new sense of nationalism surged throughout Mexico as the people rejected dictator Porfirio Diaz and his policies, and a renaissance of cultural renewal glorifying Mexico's native roots took place.

• The Mexican muralist tradition grew out of these changes and proved to be an enduring method of expressing national pride. Kahlo was an active participant in the social, economic and political landscape that characterized that life.

In “Self Portrait on the Borderline

Between Mexico and the United States”

Kahlo appears on a pedestal poised

between two conflicting worlds -

the capitalist industry of the USA,

represented by Ford's belching

factories, and the agrarian plateaus of Mexico, dotted with ancient temples and ritualistic artefacts.

Holding the Mexican flag in her hand, she makes her loyalties

clear.

Self-Portrait on the Borderline Between Mexico and the United States, 1932

My Dress Hangs There, 1933

My Dress Hangs There, 1933, set amidst the skyscrapers of New York, ridicules the modern American obsessionwith sport and sanitation by placing a golf trophy and a toilet on top of classical columns. The temple (Federal Hall), with its steps in the form of asales graph, and the church, with a dollar signin its window are dedicatedto the worship of money. At the centre of the composition is a traditional Mexican dress, of the typeKahlo took to wearing soonafter she married Rivera. By adopting regional costume, and through paintings such as these, Kahlo developed her own distinctive brand of Mexicanidad at a time when, post-revolution, the country was rediscovering its pre-Columbian and indigenous heritage.

My Grandparents My Parents and I (Family Tree) 1936, sets out Kahlo's genealogy. Her mother was a Mexican mestiza and her father a German immigrant. This bloodline is at the root of her divided loyalties, on the one hand to the indigenous culture of her native Mexico, and on the other to Europe. Kahlo's scrutiny of her mixed race heritage and its relationship to national identity in her newly democratic homeland would resurface throughout her career.

Portraits of Women by Frida Kahlo

Portrait of My Sister Cristina

1928

Portrait of Eva Frederick

1931

Roots (Raices)

1943

Portrait of Dona Rosita

Morillo

1944

Self-Portrait with Necklace

1933

Self-Portrait (Dedicated to Leon Trotsky)

1937

Self-Portrait

1940

Self-Portrait with Necklace

1933

Self-Portrait

1940

Self-Portrait with Loose Hair

1947

The Love Embrace of the Universe, the

Earth (Mexico), Me, and Senor

Xolotl1949

The Two Fridas

1939