Bisexual Mexican Artist Frida Kahlo: Love, Art, and Resistance

Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, a feisty free spirit who blazed her own trail and inspired everyone around her.

Frida Kahlo is one of the most revered artists to come from 20th century Mexico. Her distinctive look and style are instantly recognizable and she has been called a diva, a muse and a feminist icon.

A force of nature perhaps best summed up by an art critic who saw one of her very first exhibitions and said: ‘It is impossible to separate the life and work of this extraordinary person. Her paintings are her biography.’

To mark of this great bisexual painter is taking you through some of the most inspiring and interesting facts about her.

She knew how to stand out in a crowd. From a young age she was ambitious, intelligent and vastly different from her three sisters. The young Kahlo began experimenting with androgyny and cross dressing so, in this photo, a teenage Frida turns up to a family portrait dressed in a man’s suit.

She fought through a great deal of adversity during her life. At the age of six she contracted polio, when she was 18 she was badly injured in a bus crash and later in life she suffered several miscarriages. Each of these tragedies she recorded in her diary and even painted some of the scenes.

Kahlo never lost her passion for life. She was well known as an extremely quick witted and sharp woman, always the centre of attention wherever she was. Her strength of character has made her an emblem of hope and determination for many. In this painting called ‘Moses’ from 1945, one can see Kahlo’s fascination with life, religion and nature.

Art historians usually focus on her relationship with fellow Mexican painter Diego Rivera (whom she married, divorced and then married again) and her affair with Communist leader Leon Trotsky. But Kahlo was bisexual, and made no secret of her affairs and relationships with women as well as men. Kahlo was linked with African American entertainer Josephine Baker, American painter Georgia O’Keeffee and Mexican singer Chavela Vargas.

Photographers were captivated by her beauty. She was a muse to photographer Nickolas Murray who loved to take her picture in her sumptuous Mexican clothes.

Her sense of style inspires the fashion world. Designers such as Jean Paul Gaultier have been inspired by Kahlo’s imitable style. For his spring/summer 1998 collection, Gaultier’s models walked down a runway resembling a Mexican marketplace with Frida-style hair ribbons, red lips and thick eyebrows.

Her work has been exhibited in art galleries all over the world, her diary has been published and many authors have written biographies of her extraordinary life. In 2002, a Hollywood biopic was made of her life starring Salma Hayek.

Her posthumous recognition. For the majority of her life, Kahlo was seen as simply the young wife of her older, more successful husband Diego Rivera. It wasn’t until years after her death that her work was recognized for what it is. Today, Frida Kahlo’s most renowned works can fetch millions of dollars, reflecting her enduring legacy and influence

She was self-taught. One of her first self-portraits was completed when she was confined to her bed. A mirror was fixed to the top of her bed so she could see herself. Kahlo said she painted herself to fight the loneliness she felt.

The house she lived in is now a museum. ‘La Casa Azul’ is filled with trinkets and treasure collected by Kahlo during her life and is one of the biggest cultural attractions in Mexico.

She had a profound way with words. For every occasion, there is a Kahlo quote to inspire you.

She knew how to make an entrance. Just before her death, doctors told Kahlo she was too ill to attend an exhibition of her work. So, she told her friends to carry her to the gallery in her bed where she drank and entertained guests all night long.

She defied classification of her work. Art critics tried to label her as a Surrealist painter, which was very trendy at the time, but she defied this label, instead saying: ‘They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn’t. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.’

She shunned typical ideas of femininity and beauty. She left her facial hair untamed and wore it proudly. After another tumultuous break up with Rivera, Kahlo cut off all her long hair and dressed in a suit, her way of defying the traditional female role.

If Kahlo were alive now, she would definitely be the queen of the selfie. She feared death and being forgotten, so many believe her self-portraits were a way of immortalizing herself. Of the 143 paintings she made during her life, 55 of them were self-portraits.

Her life was an open book. Kahlo blazed her own trail, made no apologies and, through all her hardships, she never lost her passion for life. This list of inspiring things about Kahlo only scratches the surface but everyone can learn something from this incredible woman.

This article is excerpted from GSN.