by Frida Kahlo
However, what most concerns me is to see him down and to think of the danger that the infection could turn into a septicaemia, or something generalised, that he could not fight off given his condition. I don’t even want to think about it.
I want you to please tell me what you think — what would be the most appropriate thing to do and whether you think that in New York it would be easier to find a good doctor, or if it is just my bias.
There, there are a bunch of babbling charlatans who could screw him up even more. However, your opinion would be a consolation for me, since you don’t know how much sorrow and sadness I feel for Diego. It’s not necessary for me to explain more, since you love him well and know what this means to him.
Forgive me for not speaking of anything but my pain in this letter.
You can understand how I would like to talk to you about many other things, especially about how happy I am about all you have accomplished up there. Believe me, it has been a source of happiness for me.
Please write to me. You will help me feel stronger to calmly await whatever may come. Hopefully Diego will be a little better by the time this letter reaches you; this is what we all want, me more than anyone.
Say hi to Miguel and Rosa. Try to come back very soon, because we miss you a lot. I will be waiting for your letter. Diego sends his greetings.
My best regards and a hug from, Frieda
Please try to find out who is the best eye doctor there and prices of hospitals, etc. I also would appreciate it very much if you could talk to Dr. Claude and more or less tell him about Diego’s case. (I gave you his number in my last letter but if you lost it, you can always find him at the Rockefeller Institute every morning. Dr. Albert Claude.)
Here is the complete name of the microbes: Streptococcus hemolyticus.
They have invaded the whole left lachrymal gland and gotten into the facial tissue (left side). It would be interesting to know his opinion.
75. Without Hope, 1945. Oil on canvas, mounted on masonite,
28 x 36 cm. Museo Dolores Olmedo, Mexico City.
76. Fulang Chang and I, 1937. Oil on masonite,
40 x 28 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
77. Self-Portrait with Thorny Necklace, 1940. Oil on canvas,
63.5 x 49.5 cm. Humanities Research Center,
University of Austin, Austin (Texas).
78. Diego and I, 1949. Oil on canvas,
mounted on masonite, 29.5 x 22.4 cm.
Private collection, New York.
79. Self-Portrait with Hair Down, 1947.
Oil on hard fibre, 61 x 45 cm. Private collection.
80. Self-Portrait with Monkey, 1940.
Oil on masonite, 55.2 x 43.5 cm.
Private collection, USA.
The opposite to this abandonment is The Deceased Dimas Rosas at the Age of Three, a painting on Masonite of a small dead child, swathed in elegant robes of Saint Joseph and crowned in gold-gilded cardboard. This image is part of a tradition of painting or photographing postmortem children dating back to the sixteenth century. The child is dressed in honour of the Patron Saint of New Spain and holds a scepter of gladiolus. Lying on a woven palm mat amid a scattering of Cempasuchil flowers, this “dead angel” is rendered with a delicate, but realistic touch and must have given Frida some hard moments during the painting’s execution. She had lost her children before she had a chance to know them.
To vent some of her maternal instincts, Frida kept a variety of small animals, mostly little hairless dogs, talking birds and monkeys. One of her favourite critters was Fulang Chang which means “Any Old Monkey”. In the oil on board painting, Fulang Chang and I, she surrounds herself with a world of softness: her silky hair, Chang’s fur, plant tendrils cascading down in the background. This is a seductive portrait showing the artist at her most feminine.
Amidst this explosion of art, being feminine was important to Frida as she swept into her affair with Leon Trotsky. The old revolutionary succumbed to her charms as she did to his courtly attentions. They were more like giggling students, passing notes hidden in books, covertly seeking opportunities to be alone. Keeping Diego and Natalia in the dark was paramount as the two played their games. Diego never did tumble to the affair as it continued, but Natalia knew the promiscuous appetites of her husband of 35 years and didn’t have to understand English to catch on to Frida’s not so subtle mooning about.
Frida’s full length portrait, Between the Curtains, that she dedicated in writing to Trotsky – For Leon Trotsky with all love I dedicate this painting on the 7th of November, 1937 – leaves no doubt about her feelings. The fact that she is dressed in her finest Tehuana gown with an intricately woven salmon-coloured reboso across her shoulders, gives additional weight to the importance of this gift.
At the insistence of his entourage who feared security breeches and also that the affair that might cause a scandal, Trotsky and his party left La Casa Azul on July 7, moving to a hacienda 80 miles away from Mexico City. Natalia also added to the pressure and delivered an ultimatum to her infatuated roué. The separation and all the other obstacles cooled the affair and soon it ended. Though Trotsky returned to the Blue House twenty days later, the spark was gone. The self portrait, Between the Curtains, was given to Trotsky at the end of the affair.
He had her again and would have her until the end of his life.
In 1940 a GPU assassin, planted in the household of Trotsky’s final bunker-like home in Mexico, killed the “father of the revolution” with an ice axe.
81. The Flower of Life, 1943.
Oil on masonite, 27.8 x 19.5 cm.
Museo Dolores Olmedo, Mexico City.
82. The Love Embrace of the Universe, The Earth (Mexico),
I, Diego and Señor Xólotl, 1949. Oil on canvas,
70 x 60.5 cm. Private collection, Mexico City.
Letter to Lucienne Bloch (written in English)
February 14, 1938
Darling Lucy,
[…] Now I will tell you some things about myself. I haven’t changed very much since you saw me last. Only I wear again my crazy Mexican dress, my hair has grown longer again, and I am as skinny as always. My character hasn’t changed either, I am as lazy as always, without enthusiasm for any thing, quite stupid, and damn sentimental, sometimes I think that it is because I am sick, but of course that is only a very good pretext. I could paint as long as I wish, I could read or study or do many things in spite of my bad foot an other bad things, but, there is the point, I live on the air, accepting things as they come, without the minor effort to change them, and all day long I feel sleepy, tired and dispirited. What can I do! Since I came back from New York I have painted about twelve paintings, all small and unimportant, with the same personal subjects that only appeal to myself and nobody else, I sent four of them to a gallery here in Mexico, the University gallery, which is a small and rotten place, but the only one which admits any kind of stuff, so I sent them there without any enthusiasm, four or five people told me they were swell, the rest think they are too crazy. To my surprise, Julien Levy wrote me a letter, saying that somebody talked to him about my paintings and that he was very much interested in having an exhibition in his gallery, I answered sending few photographs of my last works, and he sent another letter very enthusiastic about the photos, and asking me for an exhibition of thirty things on October of this year and he wants to have Diego’s exhibition at the same time, so I accepted, and if nothing happens in the meanwhile, I will go to New York in September. I am not quite sure that Diego will have his works ready for then, but perhaps he will come later, and after to London.
Such are the projects we have, but you know Diego as well as I do, and... quien sabe lo que pase de aqui a entonces. I must tell you, that Diego painted recently a series of landscapes. Two of them, if you trust my own taste, are the best things he ever painted in his whole life.
They are simply gorgeous, I could describe them to you, they are different to any thing else he has painted befor
e, but I tell you they are magnificent! The colour, Kid, is incredible, and the drawing, gee, its so perfect and strong, that you feel like jumping and crying of joy when you see them. One of them will be very soon at the Brooklyn Museum, so you will see it there, it is a tree on blue background, please tell me your opinion after you have seen it.
Now that I know that I will have this exhibition in New York, I am working a little bit more to have the thirty damn paintings ready, but I am afraid I will not finish them. We will see.
[…] About Diego I am happy to tell you that he feels very well now, his eyes don’t bother him any more, he is fat but not too much, and he works as always from morning to night with the same enthusiasm, he still behaves sometimes as a baby, he permits me to scold him once in a while without abusing too much of that privilege naturally, in one word, he is pretty swell guy as ever was, and in spite of his weakness for “ ladies“ (must young Americans who come to Mexico for two or three weeks and to whom he is always willing to show his murals outside of Mexico City) he is as nice and fine boy as you know. Well darling, I think this letter is already a magazine for my character.
I told you all I could, taking account of my bad humour in this moment having pains on my foot, etc, etc.
I will send this letter today, airmail, so you will know a word about this lousy person.
Please give my love to Dimi, and tonight, after you go to bed, make some nice caresses on your belly, thinking I make them myself to my future godchild. I am sure it will be a girl, a little nice beautiful girl made with the best chosen hormones from Lucy and Dimi, in case I fail, and it happens to be a boy, gee! I will be proud of him just the same, any way, boy or girl I will love it as if it were the child I was going to have in Detroit.
Give my love to Ella and Boit, tell them that in spite of my silence I love them the same old way. Give a kiss to Jay Lovestone, don’t pay any attention in case he blushes, just give it in my name.
To Suzy also give my love and my best congratulations for the new little mathematician she will bring to the planet. And... one favour, when ever you happen to pass near Sheridan Square, go to the thirtieth floor and give my regards to Jeanne de Lanux, and leave a little paper with one kiss painted with lipstick for Pierre. Will you do it!
OK. Thanks a lot.
Write to me more often. I promise to answer.
What about your father! And your Mummy?
Here goes my love to you dear Lucy, as soon we know the sex of the baby, I will send a present for the future citizen of the World. Your murals of which you send photos last year were swell, Diego thought so also, send us photos from the last ones. Do not forget.
Thank you for your letter, thank you for remembering me and Diego and for being a nice kid wanting to have babies with such strong clean and wonderful enthusiasm. Diego sends you both his best regards and un abrazote de felicitación por el futuro niño.
Frida
83. Basket of Flowers, 1941. Oil on copper,
64.5 cm in diameter. Private collection.
“I urgently need the dough!”
If her search for expression as an artist traveled along many paths in 1937, Frida Kahlo’s perception of the economic value of her work began to stir over the next three years. If the truth be told, she never became a self-sustaining artist. Diego Rivera paid her medical bills and kept the refrigerators stocked. Their actual needs were minor, but their whimsical purchases, collections of artefacts and crafts, and other non-essential expenses tallied up huge sums. Though Diego’s commissions – and they were sparse from 1937 to 1940 – kept them in funds, Frida handled most of his money. He often left large checks uncashed and buried beneath piles of litter for months. He hated going to the bank. It was “…too much trouble”. Since her childhood, Frida had never worried about money. Her father often scrambled for jobs between government changeovers by vote or by bullet, but his reputation as a photographer always kept tortillas on the table. Even before Diego came along, Guillermo managed to pay for Frida’s surgeries, treatments and hospital stays. With her considerable medical bills, love of shopping for jewellery, knick-knacks, dolls, her elaborate costumes, and art supplies, plus her growing alcoholism, Frida would be judged “high maintenance” today.
The volume of work begun in 1938 and continued through the 1940s reveals her changed thinking about the paintings from “… not worth offering for sale”, to this excerpt from a letter to Emmy Lou Packard dated December 15, 1941 from a charmingly aware saleswoman:
You know which one it is, right? The one where I’m with my nanny sucking pure milk! Do you remember! Hopefully, you can convince them to buy it, since you can’t even imagine how much in need of moola I am now. (Tell them it’s worth 250 dollars.) I’m sending you a photograph so you can tell them a bunch of beautiful things about it and help me trigger their interest in that “work of art” -eh, Kid. Also, tell them about the one with “the bed” that is in New York; maybe they’ll be interested in that one – it’s the one with the skull on top, remember? That costs 300 eagles. Maybe you can give me a little push, beautiful, since, as I said before, I urgently need the dough. [27]
But as the calendar ticked over into 1938, Frida still saw herself as a “talented amateur”. She had used her work as payment for medical costs to her sympathetic doctor and lifelong friend, Dr. Leo Eloesser, Many friends had her paintings, given to them as keepsakes, but the rest were still stored in her studio or hung on her walls.
Frida Kahlo was no dilettante. She was extensively well read in art history and had personally examined works of great artists during her time in the United States. She had to know her work stood on its own merit and was unique in its themes and execution. But old insecurities die hard. With all the masks peeled away, she was still 13-year-old Frida, “pata de palo” (peg leg) to her peers. She was the crippled provincial girl left behind by Alejandro Gómez Arias. She was always cast as the outsider, stared at by the gringos in her Mexican costumes, patronised and condescended to by the press. In person, her shield and armour was the witty, sensuous, mildly vulgar, bisexual party girl she had created and inhabited with apparent relish. Her stoic gazes from photos and her paintings translucently concealed the many psychological hurts and slights she had endured.
But if she wanted to have the last laugh, there was nothing for it but to place her inner secrets, her scars and personal mythology in front of the public inquisition and await the reading of the verdict. At a group exhibition of Mexican art held in the Social Action Department Gallery of the University of Mexico, she sent My Grandparents, My Parents and I and three other “personal” works to the “…small and rotten place”. She confessed to Lucienne Bloch, “…I send them there without any enthusiasm, four or five people said they were swell…”[28]
She was completely unprepared for the letter that arrived a short time after the show closed. Manhattan gallery owner Julien Levy had been approached by someone who had seen the University exhibition. Levy asked if she would consent to an exhibit of her paintings in his gallery on East 55th Street. It’s not difficult for anyone who has tentatively pushed one of their darlings out into public for judgment – whether it is a painting, a poem, or a jar of fruit jam – to appreciate the ripple of excitement that must have raced through the hand that held that letter. And yet how many good things had been snatched away? She sent him a few photos of her paintings. Levy answered with another, even more enthusiastic letter. Could she send 30 works by October? Yes, she could and began looking at her works in a new way, as her personal creations hanging on walls in a gallery in New York City.
84. Still Life, 1942. Oil on copper,
63 cm in diameter. Museo Frida Kahlo, Mexico City.
Letter to Emmy Lou Packard
Monday, December 15, 1941
Beautiful Emmylucha,
Here I am, still stuck in bed with a fucking cold that does not want to say good-bye. I have been in a very shiny condition, and that is why I have not written to you earlier, pretty one
.
I was very happy that you could finally have an exhibition, and the only thing I feel sorry about is not being able to lend “a watchful eye” right on the day of the opening. We would have gotten so drunk that the event would have made history even in times of war.
Since you left, I’ve been down, and I don’t know exactly what the hell is going on with me, but, frankly my friend, I’m not feeling well. I feel like sleeping the whole day, and I look like a chewed piece of gum, all languid and fuc-bulous. Can you believe that “Bonito”, the parakeet, died? I gave him a little burial and all that stuff, since he was marvellous as you remember. Diego was also very, very sad. “El Caimito”, the monkey, got pneumonia, and she was close to kicking the bucket – the “Sulphamidyl” made her better. Your parakeet is doing very well; I have him here with me. How is Pandy No. 2?
Listen beautiful, tell me how the painting sale is going, and what the public was like in Los Angeles – very dull, or not? Tell me how Donald is doing, and also your parents, sister, and children. Regarding what you told me about the Arensbergs, I want you to tell them that Kaufmann has the painting “The Birth”. I’d like them to buy the one “Me, Sucking” because I’d rake it in, in that case – especially now that I’m highly penniless. If you have an opportunity, work on them as if it were coming from you; tell them it’s a painting that I painted at the same time as “The Birth” and that you and Diego like it a bunch. You know which one it is, right? The one where I’m with my nanny sucking pure milk! Do you remember! Hopefully, you can convince them to buy it, since you can’t even imagine how much in need of moola I am now. (Tell them it’s worth 250 dollars). I’m sending you a photograph so you can tell them a bunch of beautiful things about it and help me trigger their interest in that “work of art” – eh, Kid. Also, tell them about the one with “the bed” that is in New York; maybe they’ll be interested in that one – it’s the one with the skull on top, remember? That costs 300 eagles. Maybe you can give me a little push, beautiful, since, as I said before, I urgently need the dough.