When Frida Kahlo was 18, the bus she was riding in collided with a tram in Mexico City. She broke her spine, pelvis, ribs, and one leg, and was bedridden for months. Stuck in bed, she started painting on a small canvas her father rigged above her, with a mirror so she could see herself.
Many of her paintings showed her own face - strong dark eyebrows, flowers in her hair, traditional Mexican dresses - surrounded by symbols of pain, love, and the country she adored. She painted monkeys, parrots, hearts, and bones. Some of her work looks like a dream and some like a wound.
She married the famous mural painter Diego Rivera (twice - they divorced and then remarried). They were both fiercely Mexican, fiercely political, and fiercely in love and out of love. Today Frida Kahlo’s face is on murals, posters, and stamps around the world - a symbol of resilience and Mexican identity.
