Artists of the 20th Century: Frida Kahlo

Ever since I was set the task of recreating my own version of Frida Kahlo's 1946 painting 'Tree of Hope: Remain Strong' for my GCSE Art and Design exam then studying her work briefly in my A Level Fine Art coursework, I have admired the Mexican spirit that Kahlo brought to her work during the 20th century.

Tree of Hope: Remain Strong 1946

This painting is probably one of my favourite pieces of artwork of all time mainly because it symbolizes Kahlo's strength and courage after undergoing a complicated and mishandled operation in New York. In the painting, Kahlo has illustrated two versions of herself; one being the weak Frida being removed from the operation room after surgery and the other being a confident, powerful representation of her character. The painting is even more interesting because Kahlo has created further visual contrasts between the depicted imagery of day and night. She has painted one half set in daytime with the scorching sun gazing down at her feeble body to symbolize the Aztec mythology that suggests the sun is fed by the sacrifice of human blood. In this case, the human blood is Frida's which you can see trickling down her body underneath her open wounds. The other half of the painting illustrates Frida in a polar opposite state and one that has been assigned to the moon, which is arguably a symbol of womanhood and translates Kahlo's inner hopes to regain her feminine, elegant identity after the operation. In the image of the confident Frida, she holds her cast that she 'hope's' to one day get rid of but as history told, this was just a wishful dream of the 'beginning of the end' for Frida's health.

As an influential icon, Kahlo shows in this communicative painting of survival that although physical impediments can affect a person's life severely, you should never lose hope of being the strong person that you identify yourself as or long to be.

Frida Kahlo as a style icon within Mexican fashion and culture

Kahlo's distinctive colourful style was iconic in the 20th century however, her exuberant style was also arguably expansive as she used certain fashion codes to mask the misery and pain she experienced during her life. The surrealist painter was known for her traditional Mexican rebozo scarfs, intensely patterned corset dresses and beautiful jewels but they also visually communicated the insecurities she had. These insecurities being her damaged torso post operation which she covered by wearing structured corsets, her amputated right leg disguised with long floral dresses and the heartbreak and vulnerability she felt after her husband cheated on her with Kahlo's younger sister, Cristina, which was represented through her innocent and delicate headbands. However, beyond the troubles that commenced during her womanhood and which she exposed through her autobiographical paintings, Kahlo still managed to birth a confident, culturally obsessed fashion sense for herself.

Kahlo was a vision of a true Mexican woman in the 1920's (a time when flapper girls were taking over American culture and the first wave of cool androgyny hit the fashion scene). Each of her brightly colour garments possessed imagination with her rejection of typical global female attire at the time and instead, Kahlo was known to wear traditional Mexican matriarchal dresses from the South Mexican Tehuantepac society. However, although the silhouettes of these garments were traditional, they also depicted a dominant image which Kahlo applied her own creative spin to by combining Chinese and European fabrics to arguably communicate an even stronger authority over her merged individual fashion and Mexican style.

Frida Kahlo's fashion in her paintings

Looking at some of Kahlo's most famous paintings, it can be seen that she has translated her powerful sense of fashion onto the canvases of her work but in a toned down, complex way. Arguably, by toning down the colours and patterns of her clothing in each painting, she communicates a more serious tone to her viewers in order to expose her non-fictional psychological narratives that run throughout her art collection. Therefore these paintings offer some realism of the miseries of Kahlo's life but do not portray the same eccentric, vibrant identity that she painted for herself with her wardrobe and beyond the paint brushes.

Frida Kahlo's self-portrat dedicated to Leon Trotsky 1937

Memory, the Heart, 1937

The Two Fridas, 1939

Frida Kahlo's inspiration for fashion editorials and runways

Almost sixty two years after her death, Frida Kahlo's Mexican style is one that continues to influence many high end designer collections and editorials, placing her as a dominant fashion culture icon of the 20th century. Designers such as Dolce and Gabbana, Maya Hansen, Givenchy and Jean Paul Gaultier have all noticeably taken inspiration from Kahlo's authentic style. Furthermore, Carine Roitfeld even used Kahlo as a muse for her 'Virgo's' editorial for the third issue of her 'CR' Fashion Book in Fall 2013, proving that Kahlo has had a global effect on the world of fashion.