#3, Frida Kahlo, (A Few Small Nips), 1935

The Artist:

Frida Kahlo de Rivera was born July 6, 1907in Coyocoán, Mexico City, Mexico. Frida  grew up in the family’s home  which is later referred as the Blue House or Casa Azul. Her father, Wilhelm  was a German photographer who had immigrated to Mexico where he met and married her mother Matilde. At  the age of 6, she contracted polio, which caused her to be bedridden for nine months. While she did recover from the illness, she limped when she walked because the disease damaged her right leg and foot. Her father encouraged her to play soccer, go swimming to help  her recovery. On September 17, 1925, Kahlo was traveling on a bus when the vehicle collided with a streetcar. As a result of the collision, Kahlo was impaled by a steel handrail, which went into her hip and came out the other side. She suffered serious injuries as a result, including fractures in her spine and pelvis. She was considered  to be one of Mexico's greatest artists, Frida began painting after she was severely injured in a bus accident. In 1929 she got married to Diego Rivera who encouraged her artwork (Herrera, 15). In 1930, they lived in San Francisco, California, where Kahlo showed her painting Frieda and Diego Rivera at the Sixth Annual Exhibition of the San Francisco Society of Women Artist. She incorporated more graphic and surrealistic elements in her work for example her painting, Henry Ford Hospital (1932), where she appears on a hospital bed with several items   things such as a fetus, a snail, a flower, a pelvis, and others which were floating around her connected to her by red, vein like strings , the work was deeply personal, telling the story of her second miscarriage.  Extremely depressed,  Frida was hospitalized again in April 1954 because of poor health, or, as some reports indicated, a suicide attempt. Kahlo died on July 13 at her beloved Blue House. There has been some speculation regarding the nature of her death. It was reported to be caused by a pulmonary embolism, but there have also been stories about a possible suicide. Since her death, Kahlo’s fame as an artist has grown. The Blue House was opened as a museum in 1958. The feminist movement of the 1970s led to renewed interest in her life and work, as Kahlo was viewed by many as an icon of female creativity (Davies, 1027-28).

The Work:


Kahlo created this oil on metal after a report surfaced of an unfaithful woman being stabbed to death on a cot by her spouse. At the time, she was going through her own chronic pain and emotional pain because her husband, Diego, a fellow painter, her and younger sister were having an affair with one another. This painting enabled her to express her pain through a re-creation of someone else's real-life experience. Kahlo told a close friend that she herself felt, "murdered by life"(www.lisawallerrogers.wordpress.com). The white and black doves presented at the top of the painting symbolize the light and dark sides of love and the ribbon they are holding say,"…because she gave herself to another bastard, but today I snatched her away, her hour has come"(www.fridakahlofans.com).

My Reaction:

Everything about this piece screams femininity to me because the painting reveals one of the many hardships that females experience everyday. Nearly, two-thirds of crimes committed against women is done by the hands of someone close to them (allaboutcounseling.com). There is a man in the painting but it's as if he's not even there because your attention is first drawn to this poor woman's lifeless body. Through it all Kahlo still manages to display how beautiful the female anatomy is by keeping the body completely nude. I just can't understand what could trigger someone to have so much rage towards another human being.This piece was truly a call for help for all females affected by domestic violence.

Works Cited:

Davies, Penelope W., Walter Denny, Frima Hofrichter, Joseph Jacobs, Ann Roberts, and David Simon. Janson's History of Art: The Western Tradition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007. Print. 

"Domestic Violence." – Battered Women, Children – Physical Abuse. Web. 05 Mar. 2012. <http://www.allaboutcounseling.com/domestic_violence.htm>. 

"A Few Small Nips (Passionately in Love)." Few Small Nips, Unos Cuantos Piquetitos, Frida Kahlo, C0150. Web. 05 Mar. 2012. <http://www.fridakahlofans.com/c0150.html>. 

Herrera, Hayden. Frida, a Biography of Frida Kahlo. New York: Harper & Row, 1983. Print.