Who is Frida Kahlo?

Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter whose work is characterized by its use of bright colors and depictions of the human body. Kahlo’s best-known works include her self-portraits, which often reflect her physical ailments, including chronic pain caused by a serious bus accident in 1925. Kahlo was born in 1907 and died in 1954 at the age of 47. Her parents were of mixed German and Mexican heritage. Her childhood bout with polio left her with a lifelong disability that affected her health for the rest of her life; this experience is often reflected in her work. In 1929 she married fellow Mexican painter Diego Rivera; the couple divorced after eight years and remarried in 1940. Kahlo had several famous lovers throughout her life, including Leon Trotsky and Josephine Baker; these relationships inspired many of her paintings and personal objects, some of which have sold for record amounts at auction houses worldwide. Although Kahlo’s work was largely unknown outside of Mexico until the late 1970s, she is now considered one of the greatest painters of the 20th century, second only to Pablo Picasso.