Frida Kahlo: In Conversation with Death

Frida Kahlo
(Credit: theweddingtearoom.fr)

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) was an artist whose work spoke to the emotional and intellectual identity of its subject matter – no easy feat for a woman who was, first and foremost, a self-portrait artist. She created portraits of the human soul, honest in their expression of its potential to create beauty, love and pain. So how did such an artist – such a mind – embrace the topic of death in both her art and end-of-life preparations?

“Thinking of Death” by Frida Kahlo
(Credit: fridakahlo.tumblr.com)

In Kahlo’s collective work, death seems to pervade almost every one of her paintings as an expression of pain, or a motif of oppression concerning female gender roles. Kahlo employs an almost anatomical eye in looking at her form, juxtaposing it beside images of adorned skeletons*. Pensando en la Muerte (Thinking of Death) (1943) shows Kahlo in front of lush foliage – mouth still, eyes steady – but on her forehead there is a small, piercing image of a skull. Death, though hidden by Composure, is never far from the artist’s mind.

“Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away.”
–Frida Kahlo

Kahlo gained just as much fame for her artistic oeuvre as she did for her colorful, tragic life in the Mexico City art scene. “The only thing I know,” she said, “is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.” It’s a quote that tempts us to think that her reality was anchored by this insatiable love of painting.

Kahlo’s death mask at her home, Casa Azul
(Credit: kendascottblogspot.com)

But when we look at works like Sin Esperanza (Without Hope) (1945) that show her in near exhaustion, we see less of a grounded Kahlo than we do an artist suspended between bouts of extreme physical torment (due to the disabilities following a bus accident at age 18, she had over 35 surgeries in her life) and emotional turmoil (enter turbulent relationship with Diego Rivera).

Museo Frida Kahlo (Casa Azul) in la Ciudad de México (Distrito Federal), México
(Credit: Wikipedia)

What could death have meant for Kahlo? Would it seem like a time of repose for a woman who had spent a lifetime in pain? Perhaps. But Kahlo was also revered for her strength of spirit, for her tenacity and her acceptance of every emotion on the spectrum. It made her all that more alive.

Kahlo was opposed to any burial option for herself, considering the idea ridiculous. She had been bed-ridden on-and-off her entire life and said she’d “laid down long enough!”

“I hope the exit is joyful — and I hope never to return.”
–Frida Kahlo on death and dying

Frida and Diego
(Credit: pinkpagoastudio.blogspot.com)

Kahlo was cremated and placed in a pre-Columbian, toad shaped urn at her home in Casa Azul. Today, the house serves as a museum for admirers from across the globe. Visitors can tiptoe through the house, which is filled with the totems of an incredible life; one can just imagine young Frida cooking chilaquiles for Diego in their yellow kitchen, or mixing paint in her bedroom workspace. And on the artist’s bed lies one special object in particular: her death mask. The mask is a mold made of her face after her passing, which serves to memorialize her. The mask, with the composed gaze of so many of Kahlo’s self-portraits, is always wrapped in one of her signature scarves. It is a final, fittingly colorful creation for such a vibrant woman.

*Skeletons seem to carry a different, less taboo meaning in Mexican culture. For more information, see our post on Dia de los Muertos.

Related:

• CBS article on Frida’s mysterious death
• SevenPonds’s article: Pablo Picasso: Death of Harlequin