Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter who is best known for her self-portraits that deal with themes such as identity, the human body, and death. She was born to a German father and a mestiza mother, and suffered from polio as a child and a bus accident at 18 that left her with chronic pain and medical problems. She married muralist Diego Rivera in 1929, and they had a tumultuous relationship marked by infidelity and divorce. Kahlo was influenced by Mexican folk culture and surrealism, and used vibrant colors and symbolic elements in her paintings. She also explored her personal experiences, such as her miscarriages, her surgeries, and her love affairs. She was politically active and joined the Mexican Communist Party in 1927. She had her first solo exhibition in New York in 1938, and became the first Mexican artist to have a painting in the Louvre. She died in 1954 at the age of 47, and her former home, La Casa Azul, is now a museum dedicated to her life and work.