Frida Kahlo: The Girl on the Bus (Part 1)

Stories of Art - HENI Talks

This episode explores Frida Kahlo's early life, family background, and the formative experiences that shaped her identity and artistry. It delves into her complex heritage, childhood trauma, and the beginnings of her art

Key takeaways

• Frida's Jewish ancestry is a myth she embraced for political and personal reasons

Transcript preview

Welcome to Stories of Art, I'm James Fox, and I'm Alist Asuke. A young woman with black hair, a faint moustache, and a distinctive monobrow gazes out at us. She wears a spiky necklace whose thorns pierce her skin, sending droplets of blood running down her neck, and a witch is tied like a ghoulish pendant, the lifeless body of a humdder. She is surrounded by a menagerie of other animals. A spider monkey sits behind one shoulder, a black cat creeps behind the other, and two gossamer butterflies rest on her head. Now that, Alistair, is a celebrated self-portrait by one of history's most celebrated self-portraitists, the great Mexican artist, Frida Carlo. It's a haunting work, isn't it? It is a haunting work, James. I think you forgot. I'm looking at a picture, in the catalogue on the table in front of me. Did you forget the couple of dragonflies that are sort of buzzing around? I forgot the dragonflies. You can never quite tell whether these are almost hair, adornments, or ornaments or real natural elements. I mean this is an amazing picture, very very famous and it's one of a whole series of self-portraits that Frida Carlo produced late on in her life. And I think the thing I'm fascinated by looking at it is, is you've picked a particular image where because this necklace of thorns and you can see the spikes are cutting into her neck and there drips of blood falling down her neck. She's staring at the viewer and she has this quite Christ-like presence. You know it's as if she is someone who is taking on the suffering of others and you mention the monobra, it's very very distinctive. I think most people when they see if they were to look at this they would be able to tell you that this is not just Frida, but they'd probably call her, just by the first name. And the thing I find fascinating about her is that this face is one of the most famous faces of the 20th century, because I think, I don't know if you agree with this, but I think she, and this is what's so fascinating about doing a mini series about her in this podcast, I think she transcends visual art altogether and she is operating on a sort of bigger, wider scale, if you like. It's as if she's as recognizable as she's she's, she's as recognizable as she's, as she's kind of political symbol, she's a radical somehow. And I think people clearly find her enormously attractive in terms of what she represents. She is a breakout artist, isn't she? She's one of those artists, even if you don't know much about art, you don't like art, you will recognize who she is. In fact, before we did this episode, I showed the picture to my seven-year-old son, and I said who's this. And he immediately, without a beat, Alistair, he said Frida-Calo. the great way even he understood the great way. It's very art literate household. Of course it is but it's interesting isn't it how some artworks end up you know translating across culture in that sense. Yeah they cut through and self-portrait was such an enormous part of her practice so she produced what 140 odd paintings almost a quarter of them I think actually more than a quarter of them are self-portraits what do you think about these animals in particular? Well the picture it's this is quite typical it's is quite typical of self-portraits from this moment in her career because I think this dates from is it 1940 yeah and she's presented quite some in close up you just see head and shoulders but in front of this very dark foliage these leaves behind and as you say all of these animals so she did have various pets that she lived with one of which was this spider monkey called foolang chang which means any old monkey does it I don't know yes and it was a gift from our husband who will be discussing a great detail yeah big character But through Lang Trang, any old monkey appears on her right shoulder on the left of the picture as we look at it and seems to be fiddling with the necklace. Quite sweet. The cat looks very, very sinister. Totally black, emerging out of the foliage, pour on her left shoulder on the right of the picture as we look. And then that hummingbird, you mentioned is interesting as well. It's like it's a pendant from this bizarre masochistic piece of jewelry, the necklace of thorns. Traditionally you might think a hummingbird was what a symbol of something quite joyful it's hanging there lifeless yes it appears to be dead and stiff it's like this odd talismanic emblem but again it has quite an ominous quality and I think that she is in her self-portraiture transforming the tradition of self-portrait because she is showcasing her own both physical and emotional pain and suffering through symbolic motifs like the hummingbird and the cat So much of Frida's fame that we've described is rooted in her life story, which is extraordinary. It's a tale of love and loss, of immense physical and emotional suffering, of marriages and affairs, and dozens of surgical procedures, all taking place Alistair against the backdrop of the revolutionary politics of the 20th century. So it's an incredible story. So this then is the first part in our three-part series on the life and work of work of the work of... of Frida Carlo. So Alisto, Frida Carlo is of course Mexican, probably, arguably the most famous Mexican of all time. Oh, what about that figure that she eventually marries that we'll come on to? Well I think she's more famous than him. She is now, it's interesting, isn't it? But yeah, sorry, I'm jumping ahead, James. But although she's the definitive Mexican in some ways, I'd like to begin this story, on the other side of the Atlantic because her father was actually German. His name was Ville Helencalo. He was born in 1871 in the city of Forteheim in southwestern Germany. And you know, Frida's life is full of strange mysteries. We're only 30 seconds into this episode. We already reach one of the first mysteries because she claimed repeatedly throughout her life that her father was Jewish. Right. He was from a Hungarian Jewish background. And it became established fact. It's mentioned in this really great biography by Hayden Herrera. I certainly feel I've read this. Yeah, there was a few years ago there was an exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York all about Frida Carlo's Jewish identity. If you go on to Wikipedia today you will find the first thing about Wilhelm Carlo was he was Jewish. And yet, relatively recently a pair of German historians, traced her lineage all the way back to the 16th century. And they found not a centel of Jewish heritage. So what's going on there that was a family story she's repeating or an embellishment that she's coming up with because yeah I mean it's really interesting isn't now I think there two potential explanations I mean like many great artists freedom was a self-fashioned as she was a mythmaker she was of the political left so she identified herself often with minority groups so perhaps throwing Jewishness into the mix was a good part of her stick I think the other aspect was political you know in the 1930s and 40 she's a member of the left German in the 30s and 40s if you're of the left and so one way to acknowledge that German identity but to sort of new to it was to say well I'm a German Jew. Well I also know that she changes the spelling of her name for the same reason right because she's actually called F-R-I-E-D-A which is the German spelling of freedom and she changes that spelling to almost renounce symbolically that German heritage. It means peace in German the name. Let's get back to Wilhelm Carlo. So Wilhelm Carlo grows up in Germany, relatively prosperous middle class background. His father is a jeweller and a photographer. And in about 1890 he goes to university at Nuremberg. Now one of the things that is a defining feature of the Carlo family is they get very unlucky with their health. Right. And the first person to get unlucky with his health is Wilhelm. So when he's 18-19 years old, he takes a fall. He hits his head. He suffers severe brain. injury and suffers epileptic seizures ready for the rest of his life. Frida will witness some of these seizures as a young girl. Right. At the same time Alistair, his mother dies and his father remarries a woman he hates and so Wilhelm decides, I want to leave Germany. So 1890, 1891, he crosses the Atlantic and he settles in Mexico. So how old is he roughly? He's about 18 or 19 years old at this point. He's got no money, he's got no possessions, he's got quite significant neurological disorder. We know why he's picked Mexico. Don't know why. No idea. But anyway he very quickly embraces Mexican identity. He changes his name from Wilhelm Carlo to Guillermo Carlo. Yes. He gets a relatively modest job in a jewellery shop. Remember his father was a jeweller. He marries a Mexican woman. So this is not freed his mother. Not freed his mother. They have a couple of daughters together. Yeah. Now listeners may feel relatively sympathetic towards Villehelm at this point. But what I'm about to say will change His wife dies giving birth to his third daughter and that same night Guillermo proposes to another woman and puts his children into a convent Wow Yes, this is what he does it's not his finest hour So he then has fallen in love with another woman who works in the jewelry shop a woman called Matil de Calderon who's this very handsome formidable woman from Wahaca with indigenous heritage. They marry and is very ambitious for her husband. She doesn't want to be married to a shopkeeper. She wants him to set up a business and she convinces him to set up a photographic studio which is a booming industry at the time and it proves to be very successful. He's very good at it. So my memory is that he always says he much prefers photographing buildings and monuments rather than people right? Yes and indeed he gets a really lucrative commission from the Mexican government to travel around the country taking photographs of Mexican architecture. and this generates sufficient money for him and his wife to buy a little plot of land in a village just outside of Mexico City called Coyoacan and to build a house called The Blue House the Blue House which today is obviously the Frida Carlo Museum have you ever been? I wish I had been I haven't. It's lovely you have it's a lovely place to go so this is where Frida Carlo grows up so they have a couple of daughters. Yeah. day on the 6th of July 1907 they have their third daughter whose name is Magdalena Carmen Frida Carlo I Calderon and she grows up in this relatively prosperous house I really love the sound of this this place because it's not today my understanding you've been there my understanding is that it's sort of being subsumed into the big sprawl of Mexico City but when she's born and when she's a young child it sounds like it's a very quiet quite pretty town on the outskirts of Mexico City. The sound of cockrels and that kind of thing. Yeah, it's quite like a mini paradise. Beautiful place to grow up, particularly she's got what a couple of older siblings who are sisters. I think there's a son who's born who dies when he's quite young and then she has a younger sister who's going to play a very big part in the story called Christina. And it feels like to begin with, aside from you're mentioning the dads, how did he put it in neurological issues issues. And Frida often witnesses late at night, she sees, you know, through a half open doorway in the bedroom, him having these epileptic seizures, which must have been traumatic for a young girl. But generally, the life in the house was relatively stable. Do you think it was quite strict? That's my question, because my sense is that I think there's this real bond and rapport between the father and Frida specifically. I think Frida's probably his favorite child and they feel like they're quite alike. There's sort of sympatico. takes more of an interest in other members of the family than in Frida and I think she comes from this background which was quite a sort of strict upbringing quite traditional right? Yes. Very Catholic. The mother's quite fearsome, quite intimidating. The father is a much more taciturn, morose cultural type. He'll spend a lot of time in his study on his own listening to German classical music. But they do form a bond. Because as we shall see, freedom will suffer terrible health throughout her life. over that there's a really famous black and white photograph taken in I think 1926 which is a is a family group shot and the reason it's so famous is that you have everyone dressed very elegantly and quite conventionally including Frida's siblings and then there's Frida on the left of the picture who is dressed in a man's suit