by Frida Kahlo
Naturally, I’d like Diego to be interested in expressing himself in the same way he did in New York – to express himself here or anywhere in the world. Actually, I think he is interested, but what is sad is that this is a malady inside of him that doesn’t let him be the same as he was. He uses Mexico or any other outside circumstance as an excuse, don’t you think? The fact is that I am in a constant state of anguish from seeing him like this. I don’t know what the solution is, do you understand? I don’t want him to know that I m telling you this because, as I already explained to you, he is intensely bothered by any little thing that has to do with what is happening to him. I’d like you to write to him intelligently as if I had not told you anything and it will animate him. Have Bert write to him as well because he says he likes nothing anymore of what he has done. He says that his Mexico paintings and, in part, the United States ones are horrible: that he’s wasted his life miserably; that he doesn’t feel like doing anything. It’s very difficult to explain his emotional state to you in a letter, but you will be able to understand through these few lines how painful it is for me to see him like that. If there is anyone in the whole world who has worked with all his energy and with all his strength, that is Diego. All I can tell you is little compared to how sad I feel to see how tired and sick of everything he is. I don’t want to bore you telling you only painful things, but I don’t know why I feel such relief by telling you what is happening to me. Maybe it is because you love me a little and so I take advantage to unload on you a little bit of the burden I have on my shoulders. But believe me, if it were not because I am feeling truly sad right now, I wouldn’t bother you with such a long and boring letter. […] You have to write soon so I do not become a sad and unpleasant child. Good-bye, beautiful Frieda
I wrote you on University paper because I ran out of the regular paper and I do not have any other. Forgive me.
57. My Grandparents, My Parents and I, 1936. Oil and tempera
on metal, 30.7 x 34.5 cm. Donation from Allan Roos, M.D.
and B. Roos, The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Frida knew the signs that Diego was once again involved with someone else, but when the “someone” turned out to be Cristina, Frida was at first crushed and then enraged. She had been betrayed by the two people closest to her. She locked the door to her side of the foot bridge. In a fit of anger, she chopped off her long hair and shoved her Tehuana dresses, skirts and blouses into the closet. About this same time, in 1934, her health took a downward spiral. Severe pains sent her into the hospital for an appendectomy, and in the third month of yet another unwanted pregnancy, she had an abortion. Lesions opened up in her right foot and became infected.
In the big pink house, Diego’s health deteriorated as well. He had dieted in Detroit and the result proved debilitating, leaving him open to a number of disorders, both real and imagined. Frida wrote to a friend:
…he thinks I am to blame for all that is happening because I made him come to Mexico... and that that is the reason for his being in this condition. [22]
Throughout her writings to confidants and in her diary, Frida continually defended Diego’s petulant moods, his affairs, his depressions and small cruelties to her. She rationalised them as part of his nature. How often she pictured him as a child in her arms, an infant with his soft baby face needing to be cuddled. A mother always defends her child’s shortcomings and Frida accepted her dual role as wife and mother to this man who had never developed his emotions beyond those of a young boy.
To his considerable discredit, the sullen and petulant Diego did not break off the affair with Cristina once Frida discovered them. He went on to paint a rather glamorous portrait of the younger sister with her two children in the National Palace mural, partially obscuring a dowdy image of Frida. All this emotional strife resulted in little creative output from the devastated Frida. But in 1935, the accumulated pain and suffering produced the most horrific of her retablo-style paintings on metal. She painted a murder and called it, A Few Small Nips.
A slaughtered female corpse lies on a bloody bed. Stab wounds are evident all over her contorted nude body. On one leg she wears a black shoe, a stocking and a colourful garter rucked down to her ankle. Above her stands her smirking murderer, still holding his blood-clotted knife. A banner floats above them, carried by a white and a black dove of good and evil. It reads, “A Few Small Nips”. This murder actually took place and was in the newspaper headlines when Frida painted this gore besotted abattoir, letting the blood wash down across the frame.
58. Self-Portrait dedicated to Marte R. Gómez, 1946.
Pencil on paper, 38.5 x 32.5 cm. Private collection.
59. Self-Portrait, 1948. Oil on masonite,
50 x 39.5 cm. Private collection, Mexico City.
60. Self-Portrait with Necklace, 1933.
Oil on metal, 34.5 x 29.5 cm. Jacques and
Natasha Gelman Collection, Mexico City.
61. Self-Portrait with Monkey, 1945.
Oil on masonite, 60 x 42.5 cm.
Museo Dolores Olmedo, Mexico City.
Those were the uncaring words of the murderer, a likely stand-in for Diego Rivera. Once again, she laid bare her emotions with allegory and in doing so helped flush out some of the anguish.
She seemed bent on divesting herself of her previous life, expunging her ties to Rivera, changing her appearance and continuing her painting. She packed up and moved from the Bauhaus blue house to Mexico City, setting up housekeeping at 432 Avenida Insurgentes in a small but well appointed apartment. Diego, always ready with a gesture, promptly bought her and Cristina matching chrome furniture sets trimmed in red leather. The year became devoted to establishing her new persona, hooking up with old friends and shedding all the bad feelings stored up from her long time away from Mexico. Though she spoke out often against the “gringos” and their rich society built on the backs of oppressed workers, she also remembered the artists she had seen in the galleries of major museums and in the halls of these “gringo” collectors. She had seen some of the greatest painters in the world while residing in “Gringolandia”, not pictures in a book, but seeing every brush stroke, its pigment-thick track following the artist’s direction. As with most of Frida Kahlo’s short life, she was at odds and cross-purposes with herself. In her work, she disliked the Americanos, but couldn’t wait to apply what had been made available to her in their country. In her evolving personal life, for all her posturing about the randy Rivera’s duplicity, she saw him almost every day. And he sought her out as well.
Amidst all this catharsis, Frida made an impromptu dash out of town to New York with a packed bag and two friends: Anita Brenner and Mary Shapiro – who had just left her husband. They made the harrowing and exhausting journey aboard a plane, train, and an automobile. Frida took advantage of friends she had made during their previous long stay to unleash all her emotional demons. Lucienne Bloch, and Bertram and Ella Wolfe concluded that Frida still loved Diego and should reconcile with him. On July 23, 1935, following their council, Frida wrote to Diego:
...the letters, the problems with skirts, the female teachers of... English, the Gypsy models, the helpers with “good will”, the disciples interested in the “art of painting”, and the plenipotentiary women sent from faraway places are just simply jokes, and that deep inside you and I love each other a lot! Even if we experience endless adventures, cracks in the doors, “mentions” from mothers, and international complaints, don’t we always love each other! [23]
Letter to Ella and Bertram Wolfe
Thursday, Oct. 18, 1934
Ella and Boit,
[…] I had never suffered so much and did not think I could take so much pain. You cannot even imagine what state I am in, and I know it is going to take me years to be able to get out of this mess that I have in my head. At the beginning, I thought there was a solution since I thought that what had happened would be something that would last a short time and would not be serious, but every day I am more and
more convinced that it was just wishful thinking…
First, it is a double disgrace, if I can explain it like that. You know better than anyone what Diego means to me in all senses, and on the other hand, she was the sister whom I loved the most and whom I tried to help as much as I could; that’s why the situation became horribly complicated and is getting worse every day. I’d like to tell you about everything so you could have a clear idea of what this has been for me, but I think this is going to be a boring letter, since I will not talk about anything but myself. If I gave you details about this matter, you would run away without finishing the letter […] I love you guys very much and I have enough trust in you so as not to hide [from you] the greatest pain in my life. That’s why I decided to tell you everything now.
It’s clear that the thing is not just an emotional stupidity on my part, but touches on all aspects of my life and that’s why I feel lost, with nothing that can help me react in an intelligent manner. Here in Mexico I don’t have anyone […]
I had trusted that Diego would change, but I can see and know that it is impossible; it’s just a whim on my part. Naturally, I should have understood from the beginning that it will not be me who will make him live in this or that way, especially when it comes to such a matter.
Now that he is back to work, he is acting the same way. I had hoped that by working he would forget it all, but on the contrary, nothing can take him away from what he believes and considers to be right.
Ultimately, all my attempts are ridiculous and stupid. He wants total freedom, which he always had and would have now if he had acted sincerely and honestly toward me. What makes me saddest is that we are not even friends anymore. He always lies to me and hides every detail of his life as if I was his worst enemy. We live false lives that are full of stupidity, which I cannot take anymore. First, he has his work, which protects him from many things, and then his adventures, which keep him entertained. People look for him and not me. I know that, as always, he is full of concerns and worries about his work; however, he lives a full life without the emptiness of mine. I have nothing because I don’t have him.
I never thought he was everything to me and that, separated from him, I was like a piece of trash. I thought I was helping him to live as much as I could, and that I could solve any situation in my life alone without complications of any kind. But now I realise I don’t have any more than any other girl disappointed at being dumped by her man. I am worth nothing; I know how to do nothing; I cannot be on my own.
My situation seems so ridiculous and stupid to me that you can’t imagine how I dislike and hate myself. I’ve lost my best years being supported by a man, doing nothing else but what I thought would benefit and help him. I never thought about myself, and after six years, his answer is that fidelity is a bourgeois virtue and that it exists only to exploit [people] and for economic gain.
Believe me, I never thought of it from that point of view. I know I was as stupid as they come, but I was sincerely stupid. I imagine, or at least I hope, that I’ll recover little by little. I’ll try to make a new life, putting my energy into something that will help me get over this in the most intelligent way. I thought of going to New York to live with you guys, but I didn’t have the money. Now I think that the best thing for me will be to go to school and work here until I can leave Mexico.
As for the money that Diego gave me to put away, I bought a house in Mexico that was quite cheap; I didn’t want to go back to San Angel, where I suffered so much you cannot even imagine. Now I’m living at Insurgentes 432 (write to this address). Sometimes Diego comes to visit, but we don’t have anything to talk about or any connection of any kind. He doesn’t tell me about the things he is doing and he’s not interested at all in what I do or think. When things have come to that point, the best thing is to cut them off at the root. I firmly believe that this is going to be the [best] solution for him, although it will mean more suffering for me, even more than what I’ve already had and have, which is indescribable. For him, though, I think it will be better because I won’t be a burden for him, as the others have been, and I will not accept simply being an economic burden.
[…] I assume that you are not on my or Diego’s side, but you can now understand why I’ve suffered so much. If you have a little bit of free time, you will write me, right? Your letters will be an immense consolation and I’ll feel less lonely than I feel now. I send you a thousand kisses. Please do not take me for a sentimental and stupid, obnoxious woman, since you know how much I love Diego and what it means for me to lose him.
Frieda
62. Self-Portrait with Red and Gold Dress, 1941.
Oil on canvas. Private collection.
It appeared that Frida and Diego had to suffer this nadir of their relationship in order to clear the air once and for all concerning their agreement of “mutual independence”. There would be more crises, but with this understanding they could, at least, get on with their work. However, she used up the rest of 1935 exercising that “mutual independence” in a number of lesbian and gentlemen affairs. Diego waved off her affairs with women, but even a “mutually independent” Mexican male drew the line at sharing his wife with paramours.
During the warm days of Mexican summer, Frida slipped out of her apartment for rendezvous with men of her choosing. While her love-making with famed Mexican muralist Ignacio Aguirre might have been casual, the American sculptor, Isamu Noguchi, was quite another matter. He fell in love with her. She met him while he worked in Mexico City on a Guggenheim grant. Their assignations were frequent, passionate and carried out with great discretion considering the fact that Noguchi worked alongside Rivera every day.
Noguchi had become obsessed with her and she was besotted with the attentions of the handsome sculptor. She continually shifted their trysting places between Cristina’s apartment and La Casa Azul. Diego had made it plain that if he ever caught her with another man, he would shoot the cabrone. One day, Rivera showed up at the Blue House where Noguchi and Frida were en flagrante. Knowing Rivera was usually armed, Noguchi snatched up his clothes and pounded out the French doors into the central courtyard, dashed its length down a corridor of phallic organ pipe cacti and vaulted the wall at its end. Another version has him scrambling up an orange tree and vanishing across the rooftops. In either case, he left behind one sock which Frida’s dog kept as a chewy toy.
Some time later, Noguchi visited Frida during one of her hospital stays and Diego entered the room. Panzón must have had suspicions about the young sculptor and his wife because he drew the big Colt and quietly suggested in effect that one of the bullets in its cylinder had Noguchi’s name on it. Isamu’s ardour cooled considerably.
The year 1935 ended with very little painting and much soul searching. A single self-portrait was produced showing Frida gazing at us from beneath a boyish mop of short curly hair. Her eyes are calm and her mouth gives nothing away. Above her eyes, the trademark eyebrow is more shaggy and exaggerated than usual as is the moustache that darkens her upper lip. It’s not difficult to imagine her hands on her hips, ready for whatever came next.
What happened next was alcoholism, still more surgery and Leon Trotsky. Frida had always enjoyed a good party and a few “cocktailitos”, but during and after L’ affaire Diego, her consumption rose precipitously. Besides her drinking at social occasions, she began frequenting cantinas in Mexico City and pulquerias in near-by villages. In 1936 she moved her belongings back into her half of the dual house at San Angel. She frequently attended soirées thrown by Diego for visiting artists such as actress Dolores Del Rio, writer John Dos Passos, Mexican photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo and Mexican president Cardenas.[24]
63. Self-Portrait with Stalin or Frida and Stalin, c. 1954.
Oil on hard fibre, 59 x 39 cm. Museo Frida Kahlo, Mexico City.
64. Self-Portrait dedicated to Leon Trotsky or
Between the Curtains, 1937. Oil on canvas, 87 x 70 cm.
Donation from Clare Boothe Luce, Nat
ional Museum
of Women in the Arts, Washington D.C.
65. Self-Portrait with Itzcuintli Dog, c. 1939.
Oil on canvas, 71 x 52 cm. Private collection, USA.
While her socialising was on the increase, she turned her attention to mending fences with her sister, Cristina. As she didn’t want to give up on Diego, her ties to Cristina were also too strong to cut. Frida adored her sister’s two children, Isolde and Antonio. Besides her visits to Cristina’s apartment, Frida always had time for the children at her studio in San Angel as though they were the children her wounded body denied her.