Her doctors advised that she not attend her solo exhibition. Minutes after guests were allowed into the gallery, sirens were heard outside. The crowd went crazy when they saw an ambulance accompanied by a motorcycle escort. Frida Kahlo had arrived. She was placed in the middle of the gallery in her bed, Frida told jokes, entertained the crowd, sang, and drank the whole evening. The exhibition was an amazing success.
Over the next few months, however, Frida’s health deteriorated quickly. On July 13, 1954, Frida died. On her death certificate her doctor wrote that the cause of death was a pulmonary embolism. Her death might have been the result of an accidental drug overdose or suicide, but no autopsy was performed. Her last words in her diary read, “Espero alegre la salida—y espero no volver jamás.” In English that means, “I hope this exit is joyful—and I hope never to return.”
A Timeline of Kahlo’s Life
1907 On July 6, Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo Calderón is born in Coyoacán, Mexico, the third of Matilde Calderón and Guillermo Kahlo’s four daughters.
1910 The Mexican Revolution begins. Later in life Kahlo claimed
1910 1910 was the year of her birth.
1913 Frida suffers an attack of polio, permanently affecting the use of her right leg.
1922 Fifteen-year-old Frida enters the National Prepatory School, where she plays pranks on Diego Rivera, who is painting his mural Creation at the school. Though she does not actually meet Rivera, her jokes make an impression on him. She is one of thirty-five girls in a student body of two thousand.
1925 On September 17, Frida nearly dies in a trolley accident. Her spinal column is broken in three places. Her collarbone is broken, and also her third and fourth ribs. Her right leg has eleven fractures, and her right foot is dislocated and crushed. Her left shoulder is out of joint and her pelvis is broken in three places. The steel handrail of the trolley goes straight through her abdomen. She will never fully recover from these injuries.
1926 Frida begins to paint while convalescing at home.
1929 On August 21, Frida marries Rivera. She is twenty-two (nineteen, to those who think she was born in 1910) and he is forty-three.
1931 In San Francisco, Frida meets Dr. Leo Eloesser, who becomes her physician for the rest of her life.
1934 Frida and Diego live in adjoining houses with a bridge between them. Frida has three operations, one to have her appendix removed, one for an abortion, and one because of foot problems.
1935 Frida and Diego separate. Frida moves to an apartment in Mexico City. In July she travels to New York. When she returns, the couple reconcile. She has a foot operation. Her foot takes six months to heal.
1936 Frida experiences intense back pain and has another foot operation.
1937 On January 9, Leon Trotsky and his wife, Natalia Sedova, arrive in Mexico and stay at Casa Azul. (Trotsky was one of the founders of the Soviet Union but had to flee his country when he came under disfavor with the Soviet leadership.) Like Trotsky, Frida and Diego are ardent communists.
1938 French surreallist André Breton visits Mexico and meets Frida. American collector and actor Edward G. Robinson purchases four works, her first significant sale.
From October 25 to November 14, Frida has her first solo exhibition in New York, at the Julian Levy Gallery.
1939 Frida travels to Paris for Mexique, an exhibition curated by André Breton that included her paintings. The Louvre purchases her self-portrait The Frame.
Frida returns in April, when Diego begins divorce proceedings against her. The divorce is finalized in November.
1940 In January The Two Fridas and The Wounded Table are exhibited in the International Surrealism Exhibition organized by the Gallery of Mexican Art. Her Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird is sold to photographer Nicolas Munay, who had previously purchased her work.
Frida goes to San Francisco for medical treatment by Dr. Eloesser. She shows her work in the San Francisco Golden Gate International Exhibition. The Two Fridas is shown in New York at the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art.
On December 8 Frida remarries Diego in San Francisco.
1942 Frida’s Self-Portrait with Braid is included in the exhibition Twentieth-Century Portraits at the Museum of Modern Art.
1943 One of her paintings is exhibited at the Benjamin Franklin Library in Mexico City in the group show, A Century of Portrait in Mexico (1830-1942). Her work is also exhibited in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
Frida begins teaching at the Ministry of Public Education’s School of Painting and Sculpture, La Esmeralda.
1946 Frida goes to New York for surgery on her spine. She paints The Wounded Deer and Tree of Hope, Stand Fast.
1947 Her Self-Portrait as a Tehuana is exhibited at the National Institute of Fine Arts, Mexico City.
1949 Frida writes the essay “Portrait of Diego” and paints Diego and I and The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), Me, Diego, and Mr. Xólotl, which is exhibited at the Salon de la Plástica Mexicana in Mexico City.
1950 Frida is hospitalized for nine months because of recurring spinal problems.
1953 From April 13 to 27, Frida’s only individual exhibition in Mexico is held at the Galería de Arte Contemporáneo in Mexico City.
In July her leg is amputated below the knee because of gangrene.
1954 Frida is hospitalized in April and May. On July 2, convalescing from bronchial pneumonia, she takes part in a demonstration protesting United States intervention in Guatemala. On the night of July 13, she dies. Her doctor determines she died of pulmonary embolism, but rumors persist that her death was a suicide.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Readers can learn more about Frida Kahlo’s life from:
Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, by Hayden Herrera (New York: Perrenial, 2002).
Frida Kahlo: The Brush of Anguish, by Martha Zamora (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1990).
Frida Kahlo: The Paintings, by Hayden Herrera (New York: Perrenial, 2002).
Frida’s Fiestas: Recipes and Reminiscences of Life with Frida Kahlo, by Marie Pierre Colle and Guadalupe Rivera (New York: Clarkson Potter, 1994).
The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait, by Carlos Fuentes (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998).
Look for the teacher’s guide to Casa Azul at www.wgpub.com.
WHERE TO SEE THE WORK OF FRIDA KAHLO: MUSEUMS AND WEBSITES
Albright-Knox Art Gallery 1285 Elmwood Avenue Buffalo, New York 14222-1096 Telephone 716.882.8700 Fax 716.882.1958 www.albrightknox.org
National Museum of Women in the Arts 1250 New York Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20005-3970 202-783-5000, 1-800-222-7270 www.nmwa.org
ArtNet www.artnet.com
Artchive www.artchive.com
Phoenix Art Museum 1625 N. Central Ave. Phoenix, AZ 85004 (602) 257-1222 www.phxart.org
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Senior Editor: Jacqueline Ching
Editor: Laaren Brown
Production Manager: Hector Campbell
Copyright © 2005 by Laban Carrick Hill
First published in 2005 in the United States by Watson-Guptill Publications, a division of VNU Business Media, Inc., 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003
www.wgpub.com
Excerpt on p. 92 from The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait. Introduction by Carlos Fuentes; essay and commentaries by Sarah M. Lowe (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2001), pp. 231-2
Chapter art from Design Motifs of Ancient Mexico by Jorge Enciso, Dover Publications, Inc., copyright 1947.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hill, Laban Carrick.
Casa Azul / by Laban Carrick Hill.
p. cm.
Summary: In 1940, after traveling from their country village to Mexico City to find their mother, fourteen-year-old Maria and her younger brother Victor are befriended by the artist Frida Kahlo and the talking animals and household objects that inhabit her home.
eISBN: 978-0-307-87503-7
1. Kahlo, Frida—Juvenile fiction. [1. Kahlo, Frida—Fiction. 2. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 3. Mexico City (Mexico)—History—20th century—Fiction. 4. Animals—Fiction. 5. Artists—Fiction. 6. Rivera, Diego, 1886-1957—Fiction. 7. Mexico—History—1910-1946—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.H55286Cas 2005
[Fic]—dc22
2004023300
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems—without written permission of the publisher.
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