To-Do Fridge Magnet: Frida Kahlo

INSPIRED BY, INSPIRED BY FRIDA KAHLO / ABOUT THE ARTIST FRIDA KAHLO:
Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón (Coyoacán, July 6, 1907 — there, July 13, 1954) was a Mexican surrealist painter. Frida Kahlo’s work is characterized by bright colors that stand in contrast to an estranging atmosphere. She did not shy away from controversy. In a painting commemorating the actress Dorothy Hale, for example, she depicted the moment of her suicide very realistically and in great detail. Her self-portraits are notable for the joined eyebrows. She painted from her fear and loneliness to overcome her pain. Kahlo left behind 143 paintings, of which 55 are self-portraits. In November 1938 she had her first solo exhibition at the Julien Levy gallery in New York. In 1953 she had her first exhibition in Mexico. The classification as a surrealist comes from André Breton, founder of the surrealist movement in art. Kahlo herself rejected this label, saying she never painted her dreams, but her own reality. In January 1939 she traveled to Paris at Breton’s invitation to exhibit her work. She did not like the surrealist milieu in that city, which she found bombastic and inauthentic. When, with the help of Marcel Duchamp, she opened her exhibition on March 10, she won praise from Wassily Kandinsky and Pablo Picasso. The Louvre purchased her self-portrait Autorretrato - El marco ("the frame") and Vogue placed her hand (with jewelry) on the cover. Kahlo died in 1954, a week after her 47th birthday. She left a note reading, "I hope the end is joyful and I hope never to return."