The only good thing I have is that I’m starting to get used to suffering, said Frida Kahlo, a woman who carried suffering and genius within herself.
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Kahlo was disabled by polio as a child. This disease caused her right leg and foot to grow much thinner than her left one. She limped after she recovered from polio. As any child, she enjoyed art from an early age. She was receiving drawing instruction from her father's friend who was a printmaker. She was talented in painting although she did not consider art as a career. Instead, she had been a promising student headed for medical school.
A severe bus accident at the age of eighteen left Kahlo in lifelong pain. Her pelvic bone had been fractured, her abdomen and uterus had been punctured by the rail, her spine was broken in three places, her right leg was broken in eleven places, her right foot was crushed and dislocated, her collarbone was broken, and her shoulder was dislocated.
She had to wear a plaster corset which confined her to bed rest for the better part of three months. At that point she returned to her childhood interest and began to paint.
Many of Kahlo's paintings are concerned with medical imagery, which is presented in terms of pain and hurt, featuring Kahlo bleeding and displaying her open wounds. Kahlo once said, "I paint myself because I am often alone and I am the subject I know best".
Mexican artist Diego Rivera, later credited with the reintroduction of fresco painting into modern art and architecture, was 42 and Kahlo was 22 when they met. Rivera had numerous marriages and children. Kahlo was his fourth wife. A year after Kahlo's death, on July 29, 1955, Rivera married Emma Hurtado, his agent since 1946.
Rivera, just like Kahlo, began drawing as a child. But unlike Kahlo, he went to study art at the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts in Mexico City. Later on, he traveled to Europe to further his art studies.
Due to his importance in the country’s art history, the government of Mexico declared Rivera's works as "monumentos historicos". As of 2018, Rivera holds the record for highest price at auction for a work by a Latin American artist. The 1931 painting The Rivals, part of the record setting Collection of Peggy Rockefeller and David Rockefeller, was sold for US$9.76 million.
Albuquerque Museum announces that tickets are on sale now for Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Mexican Modernism from the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of 20th Century Mexican Art.
The works were produced in a pivotal period in Mexican history, when the nation sought to redefine itself through political, social, and cultural reforms.
Tickets are $10; children 12 and under are free. Tickets for a specific time must be purchased online, in advance. Albuquerque Museum is currently open to New Mexico residents only in accordance with the Governor’s temporary health safety guidelines.
The exhibition runs February 6 through May 2, 2021. ■