Who killed Frida Kahlo: a fate full of suffering and love

An acquaintance with her is scheduled for November 2, when the Feast of the Dead (Dia de Muertos) traditionally begins in the artist’s homeland. In her honor, the country’s main puppet theater is throwing a hot party at the Barvikha Luxury Village Concert Hall. And hundreds of thousands of kilometers separating Russia and Mexico will not prevent you from immersing yourself in the atmosphere of the life of an extraordinary person, full of passion and fire.

Frida Kahlo is a woman of amazing destiny, full of pain and overcoming, and her art is a way to survive the trials that befell her. It became a kind of manifesto that inspires descendants to this day – a manifesto of incredible will, individual beauty and passionate love.

From the very beginning of her life, Frida suffered. She was born on the outskirts of Mexico City in the family of photographer Guillermo Calo and Matilda Calderon y Gonzalez. Both parents were often ill (the father suffered from epilepsy), and their marriage was devoid of love.

Frida lacked maternal care – there were six more children in the family. At the age of 6, she suffered from polio, which left her lame for life (her right leg was thinner and shorter than the left). The children teased her with “the poker.”

Even then, her rebellious nature became apparent. She did not accept the role of a cripple. Despite starting school later than other children due to illness and being expelled from the monastic school for disobedience, Frida entered the elite State Primary School, where she studied natural sciences, intending to become a doctor.

Women had just begun to be accepted there—for 2,000 students there were only 35 girls. Frida practiced boxing and participated in theatrical productions. She wore men’s suits and long Mexican skirts, decorating her hair with flowers and her chest with massive beads. She became the embodiment of outrageousness.

She said that she was born on July 7, 1910 – the day the Mexican Revolution began (in fact, three years earlier). Together with nine classmates, she founded the informal group “Cachuchas,” which opposed everything conservative, and fell in love with the leader of the circle, Alejandro Gomez Arias. She read a lot, including Russian classics, studied well, and was the center of attention. Everything seemed complicated, but beautiful, and then death crept up on Frida for the second time.

Returning from school, 18-year-old Frida was in a terrible car accident. The bus she was traveling in collided with a tram. September 17, 1925 divided her life into “before” and “after.” A triple fracture of the spine and pelvis, broken ribs, eleven fractures of the bones of the right leg, a dislocated shoulder – that’s not the worst thing. A metal beam pierced through her stomach, damaging her uterus, making it impossible for her to have children. For a year, Frida Kahlo did not get out of bed at all. Subsequently, she had to walk in a corset (to support the broken spine) and spend months in hospitals. At that moment of despair and loneliness, an artist was born in her.

Actually, Frida had been drawing before the accident – ​​her father taught her. As a child, she helped him retouch photographs. But after a car accident, she could only lie down for a long time, then her father made a special hanging stretcher for her, and fixed a large mirror under the canopy of the bed so that she could see herself. The first painting was a self-portrait, of which she later painted dozens. Then she didn’t yet think that she would become an artist, she just needed to somehow not go crazy.

Four years later, she rose like a phoenix and entered the university and at the same time the Communist Party. She once again found herself in the center of attention and heated discussions, again shone with shocking images, and the eyes of her fans were fixed on her, one of whom was Diego Rivero. Frida met him before the accident, when he was working on a large-scale mural, “Creation,” at the Elementary School where she studied. But that was a short meeting, now fate has brought them together again to keep them close until the end. Frida said about Diego that he was the second accident in her life.

Frida is 22, Diego is 43. She became his third wife. He was a world-famous artist, she was still really a nobody. Diego fell madly in love with the bright, incredible, mysterious, unthinkable Frida. But this did not stop him from cheating on his wife left and right, while to the end he remained her most faithful admirer. Frida cried because of her husband’s betrayal and answered him a hundredfold. She had many lovers and mistresses, fascinated by her ebullient temperament. And this is not only Leon Trotsky, who lived with his wife Natalya Sedova for several months in the house of Diego and Frida. This is the most legendary affair of Kahlo, which became the last adventure of the disgraced politician – when Trotsky left the house of the famous communist artist, he was killed.

However, Frida’s longest affair was with Nicholas Murray, a famous photographer whom she met while living in New York for four years.

Murray is a pioneer of color photography and has collaborated with leading magazines and publishers. His portraits of Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, Elizabeth Taylor and other stars are widely circulated. When it was time for Frida and Diego to return to Mexico, the photographer followed her. He dreamed of marrying Kahlo, but she kept him as a lover. Their relationship lasted ten years.

It seems that Frida conquered everyone around with her spontaneity. She drank a lot, told obscene jokes, cursed without hesitation, and talked about politics and philosophy. She was smart and brave. Unique. At any party she seemed like a queen, largely because she always sat upright and straight (she couldn’t do it any other way), and this appearance – external and internal – captivated.

Frida endlessly painted herself, setting the fashion for psychoanalysis and self-identity in art. But her first personal exhibition in her homeland happened only at the very end of her short and bright life – in 1953. Despite the fact that the art of Frida Kahlo created a sensation in Europe and America much earlier – in the late 1930s and 40s. Frida was literally carried in her arms to that legendary opening day at the Palace of Fine Arts.

The fact is that she could no longer walk. Frida really wanted children, but every attempt ended in miscarriage. After another pregnancy, she almost died. Gangrene developed on the leg and it had to be amputated. The pain in the back, pelvis and legs became unbearable. In 1954, 47-year-old Frida fell ill with pneumonia, which she did not survive. There is, however, a version that Kahlo died from a drug overdose. But no autopsy was performed – evidence of this is considered to be a diary entry: “I hope that leaving will be successful and I will not return again.”

But Frida, who was on the verge of death so many times, returned again. After her death, she became immortal – her portraits were distributed all over the world, and her descendants turn to her work again and again. Today, the Blue House in Mexico City, where Frida and Diego lived from 1929 to 1954, is one of the most popular museums in the country. Her works were recognized as a national treasure – Mexico imposed a ban on their export abroad. Frida’s exhibition at the Tate gallery in 2005 became one of the most visited in history – about 370 thousand people saw it.

Frida’s portrait appears on an American stamp. An asteroid discovered in 2007 is named after her. Frida became an icon of style and willpower. Life literally broke all her bones, but she found the strength and courage to stay in this world and be herself – to live to the fullest, dance tango until you drop, love and create.

All this can be seen in bright colors and unforgettable images on November 2 at the performance-party “Who Killed Frida Kahlo” at the Barvikha Luxury Village Concert Hall. The twists and turns of her fate – personal and artistic, full of passion and tenderness, like the languid tango that the daring Frida loved so much, are talentedly conveyed by the creative team and actors of Sergei Obraztsov’s puppet theater. Incendiary music, unexpected moves by the directors, colorful surroundings, and finally, the involvement of the audience in an amazing spectacle will allow you, albeit for a short time, to be transported to the Latin American continent.