MIS ABUELOS, MIS PADRES Y YO
(My Grandparents, My Parents and Me)
Frida Kahlo De Rivera
1936
30.7 x 34.5 cm
Oil and tempera on metal
[pic]
Frida Kahlo de Rivera, originally name Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón (1907-1954) was born in Coyocoán, Mexico City, Mexico and to this day is considered one of Mexico’s greatest artists of all time. Frida Kahlo began painting after a fatal bus accident at the age of 18 changing her life dramatically leading to spinal and internal injuries, causing the loss and movement of mobility of her right leg and infertility; leading to a lifetime of chronic pain. Frida Kahlo put her emotions into each of her paintings, and as it were, she wore her heart on her canvases. Her work is a rare blend of true emotion, heartbreak, love, and life, as well as death. Most of her paintings were self-portraits. Kahlo was best known for her daring self-portraits as she often said, "I paint self-portraits because I am the person I know best. I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other considerations." Her art reflected her emotions, the events in her life, and changes in her feelings - whether good or bad, she practically recorded her life in paint. Her imagery and style were very original, dramatic, and courageous. Frida’s trademark in each artwork her mono brow.
This Frida piece superficially resembles a traditional family portrait depicting a sense of a family tree, bringing into play the ‘home and family’ subject matter having the feature of representation and qualities of a landscape image.
This is the first of two family portraits in which Frida was tracing the history of her ancestry. She appears as a little girl in the courtyard of what appears to be a traditional Mexican house, where she was born. Her parents are behind her, in a pose taken from looks like a wedding photograph. The fetus in her mother's womb seems to be...