Who are Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Great Love Stories: Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera

About the tragic love story of two famous Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, dozens of books have been written and an Oscar-winning Hollywood drama starring Salma Hayek has been shot. But there is another important lesson that Frida taught in a little-known short text that she dedicated to her husband. We present to you this touching letter from a loving woman, which once again proves that love does not transform, it takes off the masks.

A PHOTO Getty Images

They married when Kahlo was twenty-two and Rivera was forty-two, and remained together until Frida's death twenty-five years later. Both had numerous novels: Rivera - with women, Frida - with women and men, the brightest - with the singer, actress and dancer Josephine Baker and Lev Trotsky. At the same time, both insisted that their love for each other is the main thing in their lives.

But perhaps nowhere is their unconventional relationship more vivid than in the verbal portrait that was included in the foreword of Rivera's book My Art, My Life: An Autobiography 1 . In just a few paragraphs describing her husband, Frida was able to express all the greatness of their love, capable of transforming reality.

“I warn you that in this portrait of Diego there will be colors with which even I myself am not yet too familiar. In addition, I love Diego so much that I can not objectively perceive him or his life ... I can't talk about Diego as my husband, because this term in relation to him is absurd. He never was and never will be anyone's husband. I cannot speak of him as my lover, because for me his personality extends far beyond the realm of sex. And if I try to talk about him simply, from the heart, everything will come down to describing my own emotions. And yet, given the obstacles that feeling imposes, I will try to sketch his image as well as I can.

In the eyes of Frida in love, Rivera - a man unattractive by conventional standards - is transformed into a refined, magical, almost supernatural being. As a result, we see not so much a portrait of Rivera as a reflection of the amazing ability of Kahlo herself to love and perceive beauty.

He looks like a huge baby with a friendly but sad face.

“Thin, sparse hair grows on his Asian head, giving the impression that they seem to be floating in the air. He looks like a huge baby with a friendly but sad face. His wide-open, dark and intelligent eyes are strongly bulging, and it seems that they are barely supported by swollen eyelids. They protrude like the eyes of a frog, separated from each other in the most unusual way. So it seems that his field of vision extends further than most people. As if they were created exclusively for the artist of endless spaces and crowds. The effect produced by these unusual eyes, so widely spaced, suggests the age-old oriental knowledge hiding behind them.

On rare occasions, an ironic yet tender smile plays on his Buddha lips. Naked, he immediately resembles a young frog standing on its hind legs. Its skin is greenish white like an amphibian. The only swarthy parts of his whole body are his hands and face, burned by the sun. His shoulders are like those of a child, narrow and rounded. They are devoid of any hint of angularity, their smooth roundness makes them almost feminine. Shoulders and forearms gently pass into small, sensitive hands ... It is impossible to imagine that these hands could create such an extraordinary number of paintings. Another magic is that they are still able to work tirelessly.

I'm expected to complain about the suffering I endured with Diego. But I do not think that the banks of the river suffer because of the fact that a river flows between them.

Diego's chest - we must say about it that if he got to the island ruled by Sappho, where male strangers were put to death, Diego would be safe. The tenderness of his beautiful breasts would have given him a warm welcome, though his masculine strength, peculiar and strange, would also have made him an object of passion in lands whose queens greedily cry out for masculine love.

His huge belly, smooth, taut and spherical, is supported by two strong limbs, powerful and beautiful, like classical columns. They end with feet that are planted at an obtuse angle and seem to be sculpted in order to place them so wide that the whole world is under them.

At the very end of this passage, Kahlo mentions an ugly and yet so common tendency to judge the love of others from the outside - a violent flattening of the nuance, scale and incredible richness of feelings that exist between two people and are available only to them alone. “Perhaps I am expected to hear complaints about the suffering that I experienced next to Diego. But I don't think that the banks of a river suffer because a river flows between them, or that the earth suffers from rain, or that an atom suffers when it loses energy. In my opinion, natural compensation is given for everything.”

1 D. Rivera, G. March "My Art, My Life: An Autobiography" (Dover Fine Art, History of Art, 2003).

"The agony of my love will last a lifetime..."

The love story of two outstanding artists of the 20th century - FRIDA KALO and DIEGO RIVERA - is full of drama, passions and permeated with art, to which both were boundlessly devoted

They met for the first time in 1923. The Mexican government asked the best artists in the country to paint the reception hall of the Preparatory School, the most prestigious educational institution in Mexico City at that time. The work was supervised by 36-year-old Diego Rivera, a master of monumental painting, known not only in his homeland, but also in America and Europe. As soon as he appeared at school, this fat giant in unironed trousers with an unusually wide leather belt and a wrinkled cowboy hat immediately became the object of ridicule. He was literally hunted by a team of students famous for their tricks. Frida Kahlo was also in this company. Rivera, who, despite his appearance - even friends called him "cannibal" - had an incredible charm and often brought different beauties to school with him. More often than others, Lupe Marin, whom he soon married, and model and artist Naui Olin visited here. Young Frida, as Rivera later recalled in an interview, adored, hiding in a dark corner of the column, shouting if Lupe was next to Diego on the scaffolding: “Hey, Diego, here comes Naui.” And if Naui was next to the artist, then: “Be careful, Diego, Lupe is coming!” Rivera was sure that this girl, who looked about ten or twelve years old, although she was fifteen, was already jealous of him.

Their second meeting took place five years later, by which time Diego had already broken up with Lupe. “Somehow, while working on one of the frescoes,” he recalled in his autobiography “My Art, My Life,” I heard a girl’s voice:
- Diego, get down here, please! I have important business for you.
I turned and looked down. There was a girl of about eighteen. A graceful flexible body, a delicate face, long hair, dark thick eyebrows fused at the bridge of the nose, a pair of amazing brown eyes. When I came down she said
“I didn’t come for some trifle. I need to earn a living. I have done some paintings and I want you to look at them with a professional eye. Just be honest, I can't afford to do this out of vanity. Here I have three pictures. See them?
"Okay," I said and followed her...
The pictures of the stranger Rivera really liked. It was absolutely clear: this girl is a real artist. He expressed his admiration for her. She immediately invited him to see her other works and, inviting him to her house in Coyoacan, a suburb of Mexico City, introduced herself: "Frida Kahlo." It was only then that Rivera remembered that he had met this girl before.

Beauty, intelligence and vitality
On the following Sunday, he arrived in Coyoacan, to the house where Frida lived, her sisters, the elder Matita and the younger Christina, and parents - the famous photographer Guillermo Kahlo, who moved to Mexico from Germany in 1891, and his wife - the beautiful Matilda, the granddaughter of the Spanish general.
He never met women like Frida, although he had many novels and was already married twice - to the Russian Angelina Belova and the Mexican Lupe Marin. Diego had four children, among them a daughter from another Russian - the artist Maria Vorobyeva-Stebelskaya, whom everyone called "Marevna". In Frida, Rivera was struck by her peculiar beauty, childish mind and extraordinary love of life. He could not imagine how much suffering befell this nineteen-year-old girl. When she was six years old, the first trouble came into her life - polio. Nine months the girl spent bedridden.

In 1925, an eighteen-year-old girl was overtaken by a new blow of fate. On September 17, at a crossroads near the San Juan market, Frida's bus was hit by a tram. One of the iron fragments of the wagon pierced Frida through and through at the level of the pelvis and exited through the vagina. “So I lost my virginity,” she said. After the accident, she was told that she was found completely naked - all her clothes were torn off her. Someone on the bus was carrying a bag of dry gold paint. It tore, and the golden powder covered Frida's bloody body. And a piece of iron stuck out of this golden body.
Her spine was broken in three places, her collarbones, ribs, and pelvic bones were broken. The right leg was broken in eleven places, the foot was shattered. For a whole month, Frida lay on her back, clad in plaster from head to toe. “A miracle saved me,” she told Diego. “Because at night in the hospital death danced around my bed.”

Unequal marriage
For another two years, she was pulled into a special orthopedic corset. The first entry she managed to make in her diary was: "Good: I'm starting to get used to suffering." In order not to go crazy with pain and longing, the girl decided to draw. Her parents made a special stretcher for her so that she could draw while lying down, and attached a mirror to it - so that she had someone to draw. Frida could not move. Drawing fascinated her so much that one day she confessed to her mother: “I have something to live for. For painting."

Barely getting stronger, Frida decided to show her work to a real artist. The great Diego Rivera, whom she made fun of at school, was the only painter she knew. She was not afraid to hear from him that her work is no good. She was no longer afraid of anything. The first walk she took when she could walk was a bus ride to San Juan Market.

Every day Diego became more and more attached to this small, fragile girl - so talented, so strong. On August 21, 1929 they got married. She was twenty-two, he was forty-two.

In 1932, which the couple spent in Detroit, Frida became pregnant. She really wanted to have a child. One attempt - it was still in Mexico - ended in failure. With her health, childbirth could end tragically. Doctors advised her to have an abortion, but she still decided to take the risk. The birth, as expected by the doctors, was unsuccessful, and Frida forever lost the opportunity to become a mother. Rivera called this day Frida's tragedy. He spent long hours in the hospital with his wife, trying to console her. And as many years ago, art saved her - Diego brought Frida canvas and paints to the hospital. And she started painting again. Rivera was delighted: his Frida was becoming a real artist!

Life as it is
Their house was rarely quiet. Diego enjoyed great success with women, was always surrounded by fans and never denied them attention. He needed sexual freedom, it served as a powerful creative impulse. Frida was madly jealous of him. And he, having made it a rule not to hide anything from his wife, told her about his hobbies. At the same time, the thought that she could change him, infuriated him. Frida gradually got used to this state of affairs, but in 1934 Diego crossed all boundaries - he cheated on her with her younger sister Christina, who posed for him. The double betrayal was unbearable. Frida did not tell anyone about the pain that torn her soul, the only “document” of those days was her picture: a naked female body was cut with bloody wounds, and next to him, with a knife in his hand, stands the cruel and indifferent one who inflicted these wounds. “Just a few scratches” - this is how Frida called her painting with her usual irony. After the incident with Christina, Frida decided that she and Rivera should live apart for a while.

This step was not easy for Frida. “What happened is also my fault. I didn’t understand what he needed, I resisted the inevitable…” she wrote. Rivera, as it seemed to Frida, slightly missed her: he, as before, worked hard and also fell in love with his models. Trying to make him jealous, Frida went to New York and there openly, in full view of journalists, flirted with men. Moreover, there were rumors about her lesbian adventures. In 1936, Frida met the sculptor Isamu Noguchi, a friend of Rivera. Diego finally could not stand it: finding Frida in the company of Noguchi, he drew a pistol, but, fortunately, did not shoot anyone.

In 1937, Leon Trotsky and his wife arrived in Mexico, and Rivera, who bowed before the "tribune of the Russian revolution", asked Frida to give him shelter. Frida joined the Communist Party back in 1928, however, a year later, after Diego was expelled, she left its ranks, but remained true to her convictions. Its heroes were the leaders of the world labor movement: Marx, Lenin, Mao Zedong. And of course, the arrival of Trotsky, expelled from Stalin's Russia, was a huge event for her. Bright, witty, charming artist conquered Lev Davidovich. He was carried away by her like a boy: he wrote notes, made appointments. Probably, Frida responded to his feeling. But then Trotsky's wife, Natalya Sedova, intervened. Having convinced her husband that this passion would not add to his authority in the eyes of the world proletariat, she insisted on leaving this hospitable, but which turned out to be such a dangerous house for them.

Divorce and marriage again
At the end of 1939, Frida and Diego officially divorced. “We have not stopped loving each other at all. I just wanted to be able to do what I want with all the women I liked,” Diego wrote in his autobiography. And Frida admitted in one of her letters: “I can’t express how bad I feel. I love Diego, and the agony of my love will last a lifetime ... "

On May 24, 1940, an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Trotsky took place. Suspicion also fell on Diego Rivera. Warned by Paulette Goddard, he narrowly escaped arrest and managed to leave for San Francisco. There he painted a large panel depicting Goddard next to Chaplin, and not far from them ... Frida in the clothes of an Indian woman. He suddenly realized that their separation was a mistake.

Frida suffered a divorce hard, her condition deteriorated sharply. Doctors advised her to go to San Francisco for treatment. Rivera, having learned that Frida was in the same city with him, immediately came to visit her and announced that he was going to marry her again. And she agreed to become his wife again. However, she put forward conditions: they will not have sexual relations and they will conduct financial affairs separately. Together, they will only pay for household expenses. Here is such a strange marriage contract. But Diego was so happy to get his Frida back that he willingly signed this document.

On December 8, 1940, on Rivera's 54th birthday, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera married for the second time. “No one will ever understand how much I love him,” Frida wrote in her diary. - I only want one thing: that no one hurts him ... and does not interfere with living the way he likes. If I had health, I would give it entirely to Diego.

Alas, her health was declining. Frida spent a lot of time in hospitals, wore special corsets without removing them. But she did not give up, she worked and still suffered: the fans did not leave her Diego alone.

The last "sorry"
In 1950, Frida's condition deteriorated sharply. She was admitted to the hospital, where she spent a year wearing a corset. During this time, she underwent seven operations. Rivera was shocked by the courage with which his wife endured terrible pain, and how he could brighten up her existence. Their friends recalled how movingly Diego, refusing all orders, courted Frida, sang to her and danced around her hospital bed.

From now on, Frida could only move in a wheelchair. When in 1953 in Mexico City, at the Museum of Modern Art, her first major exhibition opened, she no longer got out of bed. But she dreamed about this exhibition for so long that she decided to be sure to be at its opening. Thousands of admirers of her talent, gathered in the museum, greeted their favorite with a standing ovation, which the orderlies carried out of the ambulance and laid on a festively decorated bed. "And I'm a celebrity now, not just Rivera!" she joked.

In the same year, her right leg was amputated to the knee - gangrene began. “With her characteristic courage,” Rivera recalled in her autobiography, “having learned about gangrene, she demanded an amputation as soon as possible. It was her fourteenth operation in sixteen years. After the operation, the nurse who cared for her often called me: “Frida is crying and says she wants to die.” I immediately quit work and rushed to her to comfort her. In the end, a 24-hour watch had to be established.”

Last goodbye
She did not expect such devotion from Rivera. Diego, as before, was only her! On July 13, 1954, Frida died in her sleep, as happens with very happy and good people. She was 47 years old. And only six of them she lived without pain. The last entry in Frida Kahlo's diary: "I look forward to leaving with joy and I hope that I will never return."

The coffin with her body was installed in the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City and covered with the banner of the Communist Party of Mexico. Someone said it was her will. But it turned out that she didn't ask for anything like that.

Rivera took Frida's departure hard. He stopped working for a long time, started drinking. Diego's sister, Maria del Pilar, wrote in her memoirs that Frida, dying, called Rivera's longtime assistant and agent, Emma Hurtado, to herself, and she promised her that after Frida's death she would marry Diego and take care of him. Frida knew that Diego could not live without women. A year after the death of the artist, in 1955, Diego and Emma, ​​as requested by Frida, got married.

Frida seemed to have a premonition of what would happen to her Diego. He really could not do without Emma's worries: the doctors discovered he had cancer. He was treated in the USSR, but to no avail. The famous Mexican artist died on November 24, 1957. His last wish was to be cremated and the ashes mixed with those of Frida, but his request was not fulfilled. Rivera, who during his lifetime, leaving, always returned to his Frida, was separated from her after death, for the sake of politics. He was solemnly, with a huge gathering of people, buried in the cemetery of San Dolores, in the Rotunda of glorious names ...

We thank the Gala Biography magazine for their help in preparing the material.

Frida Kahlo Frida and Diego Rivera 1931
100 × 79 cm
Oil, Canvas

Romantic natures would say that Diego and Frida were destined to live life together. But this love story was very far from ideal. Unbridled passion in her was intertwined with all-consuming anger, tenderness - with betrayal, devotion - with jealousy, love - with pain.

Fearless

Diego heard her voice first. In 1922, the artist was painting an auditorium at the National Preparatory School of Mexico City. And several times an invisible girl, hiding behind the columns, shouted sarcastic comments at him. And then one evening, Diego was working on the scaffolding with his then wife Lupe Marin, and suddenly he heard some noise outside the door, after which the girl was pushed into the audience.

“She was dressed like any other student, but her demeanor instantly made her stand out from the crowd. There was an unusual dignity and self-confidence in her, and a strange fire burned in her eyes. She looked straight at me, "If I watch you work, will it cause any inconvenience?" I replied: "No, young lady, I will be flattered."


Diego Rivera at work

She sat down and silently watched me, her eyes following every movement of my brush. A few hours later, jealousy woke up in Lupa, and she began to insult the girl. But she paid no attention to it. This, of course, angered Lupe even more. Putting her hands on her hips, she walked over to the girl and stared at her with a belligerent air. The girl froze and met her gaze without a word. Frankly amazed, Lupe stared at her for a long time, and then smiled and said to me with envious admiration: “Just look at this girl! So small - and not at all afraid of such a tall and strong woman like me. I like her".

When the girl left, she only said "Good night." A year later, I found out that it was she who was shouting those mocking jokes from behind the columns, and that her name was Frida Kahlo. But I had no idea that one day she would be my wife."



self-portrait
Frida Kahlo
1922

"Blackbird Wings"

Their next meeting took place a few years later. During this time, Frida managed to endure a terrible accident that almost cost her her life, spend several months in a cast, learn to walk again and start drawing.

That day, Rivera was working on murals in the building of the Ministry of Education and suddenly heard a cry: “Diego, please come down from there! I need to discuss something important with you!” The artist recalled: “A girl of 18 years old was standing on the ground under me. She had a beautiful nervous body and a tender face. Her hair was long and dark, and her thick eyebrows met over the bridge of her nose. They looked like the wings of a blackbird."



Frida Kahlo at the age of 18

Intrigued, Rivera went downstairs to talk, and the girl immediately got down to business: “I'm not here for fun. I need to work in order to have a livelihood. I have done some paintings and I want you to appreciate it from a professional point of view. I need a completely honest opinion, because I can’t afford to simply indulge my own ego. ”

When Diego looked at the three female portraits that Frida brought with her, he was amazed: “There was an unusual energy and expression in these canvases, and at the same time true seriousness. They did not have any of the tricks in the name of originality that distinguish the work of ambitious newcomers. It was obvious that this girl is a true artist.”



Self-portrait in a velvet dress
Frida Kahlo
1926, 79 × 58 cm

Knowing about his reputation as a lover and favorite of women, Frida did not immediately believe Diego. She did not look for compliments and insisted that she needed criticism. To which Rivera replied, "In my opinion, no matter how difficult it gets, you should keep painting."

Finally, the girl asked Rivera to come to her house to evaluate the rest of her work. When she told him her address and name, Diego suddenly had an idea. He remembered the fearless girl who teased him and was able to stand up for herself. Of course, he agreed to come.

Diego wrote: “I did not know about it yet, but then Frida had already become the most important part of my life. And she remained until her death for the next 27 years.

Elephant and dove

Frida's parents were against this marriage. It was painful for them to see their fragile daughter next to this monster - a huge, ugly, fat womanizer. Guillermo and Matilda called this union "the marriage between an elephant and a dove." But the girl's father was a little reassured by the fact that Rivera was rich, which means Frida would not have to work.

Frida and Diego were married on August 21, 1929. Rivera got ugly drunk at the wedding. In a drunken stupor, he beat dishes, brandished a pistol and even broke someone's finger. Frida was furious and agreed to move in with Diego only a few days after the wedding.



Arsenal
Diego Maria Rivera
1928

After some time, Kahlo became pregnant for the first time, but for medical reasons she had to have an abortion. Frida longed to give her husband a child, despite the fact that Rivera was against it.

Shortly after their marriage, Rivera was expelled from the Communist Party for accepting a major order from the Mexican government. As a sign of her loyalty to her husband, Kahlo also decided to leave the party, but both remained faithful to the ideals of the communists. Frida generally preferred to be a wife "for her husband", at least at first. She did not consider herself a serious artist and painted only to keep herself busy. When Diego received several large orders in the US, Frida went with him, but remained in his shadow. The Americans almost deified Rivera, and his wife was perceived as a kind of curious detail of his wardrobe.

American dream

The six months spent in San Francisco became very productive for Kahlo, as she almost did not communicate with anyone. In San Francisco, the artist painted one of her most famous paintings, Frida and Diego Rivera. Unexpectedly for her, the canvas was at the exhibition of women artists. This was the first time her work was presented to the public.

Rivera began to cheat on his wife almost from the first day of marriage. In San Francisco, he began an affair with tennis player Helen Moody, who posed for him for one of the commissioned murals. Frida began a romantic relationship with Christina Hastings, the wife of one of Diego's assistants. At this time, the artist began to suffer severe pain in her right leg, disfigured by polio. The famous surgeon Leo Elosser concluded that the deterioration of health is associated with stress, and prescribed Frida bed rest and a healthy diet.



Self-portrait on the border between Mexico and the United States
Frida Kahlo
1932, 31×35 cm

The couple returned to Mexico separately: Frida - in May 1931, and Diego - in June. During the separation, Kahlo managed to get acquainted with the New York photographer Nicholas Murray. Their secret, periodically renewed romance lasted a total of about 10 years.

Diego and Frida soon traveled to New York for the opening of Rivera's massive retrospective at MoMA. Diego bathed in glory. In enthusiastic articles dedicated to him, Kahlo was referred to only as "Mrs. Rivera." Then the couple, following the next order, moved to Detroit, which Frida described as "a wretched old village." Here the artist became pregnant again, but three and a half months later she had a miscarriage. Kahlo spent 13 days in the Henry Ford Hospital and painted one of her most tragic paintings, dedicated to her dead son.



Henry Ford Hospital
Frida Kahlo
1932, 30.5 × 38 cm

In September 1932, Frida received the news that her mother was terminally ill. Matilda died a week after her daughter's arrival. Returning to Detroit, Kahlo again toils from idleness: Diego is in a hurry to finish the order on time and almost does not find time for her. Longing for her native Mexico, Frida begins to paint again and, when Diego again transports her to New York, paints the famous painting “My Dress Hangs Here”, in which she criticizes the dull industrial world of the States.

Diego's work on the mural at the Rockefeller Center ended in a scandal: among other heroes, the artist depicted Lenin on the wall, which caused the indignation of the customer. They never found a compromise, and as a result, the contract was broken, and the mural was destroyed. Due to the scandal, Rivera's other orders were also canceled, he was broke and finally agreed to return to his homeland.



Here is my dress
Frida Kahlo
1933, 46×55 cm

Pain and happiness

At the beginning of 1934, several crushing blows fell upon Frida at once. Her third pregnancy again ended in miscarriage. And soon after that, she found out that Diego was cheating on her with her younger sister Christina. Kahlo suspected that her husband had a new hobby, but she could not imagine that her own sister would turn out to be the “other woman”. Frida felt betrayed by two of her most beloved people at once. She left Diego and settled in a separate apartment for several months. The artist habitually poured out her pain on the canvas. She paints a scene of a brutal murder she read about in the newspapers and calls the painting "Just a few scratches!"



Just a few scratches!
Frida Kahlo
1935, 30 × 40 cm

However, despite the betrayal, Frida could not remain separated from Diego for a long time. The couple reunited at the end of 1935, but still lived apart. Their house consisted of two separate buildings connected by an air bridge: Kahlo lived in one of them, Rivera lived in the second. During the separation, Frida managed to start several novels with men and women. Diego, who was never a model of fidelity, was terribly jealous of her, so the artist tried to keep her romantic adventures a secret.



Portrait of Christina, my sister
Frida Kahlo
1928, 99 × 81.5 cm

Frida's diary entry: “Diego = my husband. Diego = my friend. Diego = my mother. Diego = my father. Diego = my son. Diego = me. Diego = Universe.

In 1937, Leon Trotsky and his wife Natalya Sedova came to Mexico in search of political asylum. They were settled in the "blue house", in which Frida spent her childhood, and in which her father still lived. Kahlo and Trotsky quickly became close, their forbidden romance was passionate and secret. To some extent, an intimate relationship with such a prominent person, whom Diego respected immensely, was for Frida a way to once again take revenge on her unfaithful husband for having an affair with Christina. Frida and Trotsky communicated with each other in English, which Natalya did not understand, and passed love notes to each other, exchanging books. But Sedova did not need to understand their conversations in order to guess everything.

I must say that the "old man" quickly got bored with the artist, and their relationship ceased. Soon after, Frida painted a self-portrait dedicated to Trotsky, which he hung in his office. However, when he and his wife left the "blue house", Natalya convinced him not to take the painting with him.



Self-portrait dedicated to Leon Trotsky
Frida Kahlo
1937, 87 × 70 cm

This year was very productive for Kahlo, she painted some of her best paintings and, without much hope, sent them to an exhibition in Mexico City. However, it was there that they were noticed by the American gallerist Julien Levy. Thanks to him, Frida's first solo exhibition took place in New York in October 1938. The success was tremendous: she finally ceased to be considered just "the wife of Diego Rivera" and became an independent artist. This was followed by an exhibition in Paris, where one of Kahlo's self-portraits was acquired by the Louvre. A photograph of the artist in an exotic Mexican outfit and with flowers in her hair was placed on the cover of French Vogue.



Photo of Frida Kahlo from the cover of Vogue.

Despite her success, Frida felt endlessly alone and desperately wanted to return home. At the same time, her long-term romance with Nicholas Murray ended, who decided to marry another. Devastated and betrayed by the men she loves, Kahlo finally returns to Mexico and stays in the blue house. Relations with Diego continued to deteriorate, and in the same year they divorced. After the divorce, the artist paints the famous double portrait "Two Fridas": one of the heroines is the one that Diego loved, the second is the one that he rejected. However, the couple will remarry next year.



Two Fridas
Frida Kahlo
1939, 173.5 × 173 cm

Till the last breath

After the death of Guillermo Kahlo in 1941, Frida's health began to deteriorate faster and stronger. She underwent several major operations on her back and leg, was forced to wear supportive corsets, and could no longer live without huge doses of painkillers. In order to somehow cope with eternal pain and depression, the artist begins to keep a diary in which she will make notes and drawings until her death.

In 1948, Diego started another affair, which turned into a public scandal. The actress Maria Felix had a weakness for ugly men, and she wished to get Rivera as her husband at all costs. When Diego asked Frida for a divorce, she at first took it as a joke, but then she realized that he was serious and became furious. Kahlo told reporters about Rivera's "illegal" connection, and the story hit the headlines the next day. Mexican Catholics unconditionally took the side of the deceived wife, and Maria quickly ended the relationship with Diego.

Frida's diary entry: "Diego can't be anyone's husband, and never will be, but he's a great companion."

Their first meeting took place when Frida Kahlo was still a teenager. At the age of 15, she entered the "Preparatory" (National Preparatory School) with the aim of studying medicine. Here she first met the famous artist Diego Rivera, who worked at the Preparatory School on the painting "Creation". He struck her childhood imagination, Frida tracked him down, teased him with "old Fasto", tried to attract attention, and one day, as if anticipating their common future, she told her friends: "I will certainly marry this macho and give birth to a son from him."

Tragedy in the life of Frida Kahlo

At the age of 18, Frida Kahlo had a severe accident, receiving injuries: a triple fracture of the spine (in the lumbar region), a fracture of the collarbone, broken ribs, a triple fracture of the pelvis, eleven fractures of the leg bones, a crushed and dislocated foot, and a dislocated shoulder. In addition, her stomach and uterus were pierced with a metal railing, which severely damaged her reproductive function. She was bedridden for more than a year, and health problems remained for life. After the tragedy, Frida asked her father for brushes and paints.

Meeting Frida and Diego

A few years later, having recovered from a car accident, the artist came to Diego Rivera to show her self-portraits created during the year she spent in bed, chained in an orthopedic corset. Paintings by Frida Kahlo made a great impression on the famous artist: “ They conveyed a life-filled sensuality, which was complemented by a merciless, but very sensitive, ability to observation. It was obvious to me that this girl was a born artist.”

About Diego Rivera

By that time, the passionate Rivera had already broken up with his second wife, Lupe Marin, and nothing prevented him from being carried away by a twenty-year-old artist, witty, courageous and talented. He was also captivated by Frida's outstanding intellect, brought up on a Europeanized education. Diego was huge and fat. Hair growing in tufts, bulging with excitement, or, conversely, eyes covered with swollen eyelids. He looked like an ogre, but "a good ogre", as he said about Diego Maximilian Voloshin who met him in Paris. There, Diego, by the way, left his first wife, the Russian artist Angelina Belova, when he decided to go to the aid of the rebellious Mexican people. Rivera liked to portray himself as a fat-bellied frog with someone's heart in his hand. He was always adored by women, Diego reciprocated, but somehow admitted: "The more I love women, the more I want to make them suffer."

Wedding

In 1929, Frida Kahlo became the wife of Diego Rivera. He was 43 years old, she was 22. On the wedding day, Diego showed his explosive temper. The 42-year-old newlywed went over a little tequila and began firing a pistol into the air. Exhortations only inflamed the roaming artist. There was the first family scandal. 22-year-old wife went to her parents. After oversleeping, Diego asked for forgiveness and was forgiven. The newlyweds moved into their first apartment, and then into the now-famous "blue house" on Londres Street in Coyaocan, Mexico City's most "bohemian" area, where they lived for many years.

Family life

Their family life was seething with passions. " There were two accidents in my life: one was when a bus crashed into a tram, the other was Diego Rivera", - the artist liked to repeat. They could not always be together, but never apart. They had a relationship, according to one of their friends, "passionate, obsessed and sometimes painful." In 1934, Diego Rivera cheated on Frida with her younger sister Christina ", posing for him. He did it openly, realizing that he was insulting his wife, but did not want to break off relations with her. The blow for Frida was cruel. Proud, she did not want to share her pain with anyone - she just splashed it on the canvas. The result was a picture, to be perhaps the most tragic in her work: a naked female body is excised with bloody wounds.Next to the knife in his hand, with an indifferent face, the one who inflicted these wounds. "Just a few scratches!" - The ironic artist called the canvas.

In 1939 they divorced. Later, Diego confesses: “We were married for 13 years and always loved each other. Frida even learned to accept my infidelity, but could not understand why I choose those women who are unworthy of me, or those who are inferior to her ... She assumed that I was a vicious victim of my own desires. But it is a white lie to think that a divorce will end Frida's suffering. Will she not suffer further?"

Leon Trotsky in Mexico

In 1937, Leon Trotsky briefly took refuge in Rivera's house. Frida Kahlo's relationship with Trotsky is fanned with a romantic halo. There are many legends about what happened at that time. The artists themselves added fuel to the fire of myth-making. Frida and Diego, a few years after the tragedy, having already found each other again, in unison told the guests that they had secured political asylum for Trotsky solely in order to trap him and kill him. Frida also said that there were attempts by Diego to kill Trotsky due to all-consuming jealousy.

The meeting with Trotsky took place during a break in relations between Frida and Diego. In addition, the latter was in the hospital at that time and only Frida met the “important” guests at first. The artist sincerely admired the "Great Man" and expected a lot from communicating with him. She was very upset by his expulsion from the USSR and was happy that, thanks to Diego Rivera, he found shelter in Mexico City. A bright, interesting, charming young artist captivated the 60-year-old revolutionary. He tried his best to express his tenderness. Now as if by chance he touched her hand, then secretly touched her knee under the table. He scribbled passionate notes and, putting them in a book, passed them right in front of his wife and Rivera. But Mexico, as Lev Davydovich said, seemed to him "another planet." Everything that happened was like a phantasmagoria and could not last long: soon, having quarreled with the hospitable hosts, he moved to another house.

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera remarried in 1940, a year after their divorce, and remained together until her death in 1954.

Diego Rivera paintings

Photos of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo

1910. Photo of Frida as a child

1926 . eighteen year old

1929. Photo of Frida and Diego

1929

Demonstration in Mexico

1930

1930.

1930

1931

1933

1933

1938 - With André Breton

Photo from 1939

Photo from 1939

1940

1943

1954 - frida et dieg

1954 - In the last year of life

1954

1942

1940

Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, two of the most famous Mexican artists, shared political sympathies, creative views, vicious habits, a passion for wild eccentric acts, and famous artists were also husband and wife.

Acquaintance of artists

The joint life of exalted personalities was chaos and a crazy carnival, far from romantic idyll and poetic unity of souls - two egoists passionately loved each other and fought in the field of creativity from the moment of a fateful acquaintance until death.
An eighteen-year-old girl was the victim of a terrible car accident, spent a whole year in the hospital, trying to recover from multiple fractures of her ribs, limbs, and spine.

A crippled woman who lost her ability to have children managed to get back on her feet, and during the months when she was bedridden, Frida found her own confession. At the request of his daughter, Kahlo Sr. brought brushes and paints to the hospital so that the patient would have something to do during a long rehabilitation. In a lying position, Kahlo created her first paintings, pouring out on canvas the pain and bitterness of a yearning soul inside a broken body. Twelve months later, a mature artist left the hospital, who will suffer from pain for the rest of her life and polish the talent of an expressionist for the same amount of time. The ambitious girl took her works for evaluation to the master Rivera, who by the beginning of the 1920s was already known throughout Mexico as an outstanding muralist who accepted orders from both the government and private clients. An experienced painter immediately saw the gift in the guest, declaring: "This girl is an artist from birth."

Love story

There was a twenty-year difference between the venerable monumentalist and the beginning expressionist, which did not bother them at all. The famous ladies' man just broke up with another mistress, was free and with great desire was carried away by a young colleague of hard fate and great talent. Experienced Diego became Firda's first love, friend, mentor and true partner in life and work. The wedding took place in 1929, the matrimonial residence was called the "blue house" and served as the center of bohemia, creative intelligentsia, representatives of the social and political movements of the Mexican capital. Husband and wife were united by art and political convictions, however, the loving temperament of the spouses differed radically.

Paradoxically, Rivera, who was twenty years older, was more loving, trying not to miss a single skirt, and there were always a huge number of those surrounded by a star artist. The woman suffered, suffered that she could not give birth to her beloved man and satisfy his needs, but then she wised up, accepted the rules of the game, starting to start her own novels on the side. Moreover, among the lovers of the lady who hit all the hard, there were faces of both sexes. Now it's Diego's turn to be jealous, throw tantrums, scandals and bouts of rage. Once a jealous man almost shot a traitor, finding her in the arms of a familiar sculptor. Passion for the artist was the cause of a quarrel and a break in relations between the spouses of Calo-Rivera and the revolutionary immigrant Lev Trotsky, who lived for some time in the “blue house”, having found political asylum here.

Separation and death

Frida described her beloved person as follows: I had two disasters - first a bus, then Diego. The 18-year-old girl was in the passenger compartment of the bus when it collided with a tram, which for the young passenger turned into nightmarish injuries and the ensuing year of terrible suffering in a hospital bed. Rivera also brought pain and suffering, but joy always came after grief, another quarrel was replaced by reconciliation. Until patience came to an end, fragile family relationships finally cracked - in 1939, the famous couple decided to divorce. They could no longer be together, but it was also impossible for them to remain apart.

Interesting articles

Ardent natures endured only a year, again announcing their engagement right from the hospital ward, where a Mexican woman landed, whose pain in her spine worsened. True, this time the woman set an unexpected condition for the groom: now their connection will be exclusively spiritual - no physical contacts. In 1940, the second wedding of passionate artistic rebels took place, who continued their epic family battles until the death of Frida Kahlo on July 13, 1954. The great daughter of the Mexican people was 47 years old.
When the woman he loved left this world, a heartbroken widower wrote: The worst day of my life. I lost my love forever. Too late, I discovered what a huge place in my heart was occupied by love for Frida, relations with whom were the most important part of my universe.

Joint photos

The main legacy of the famous masters of painting is the great paintings, her expressionist self-portraits, his epic monumental canvases. True, joint photographs of the legends of world art also deserve close attention. Be sure to check out the next collection of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo's best family photos.