July 6th of 110 years ago, Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderón was born.

Over time she dropped the “e” from the name her German father gave her, and today Frida Kahlo is the most famous woman artist of all times, recognized, loved by millions around the world; an inspirations to many of us.

Not tall (5’2” or 158 cm), not a classical beauty, her walk impaired by polio at the age of 6; she created her own unique image, staged herself in such a way that today she is recognized not only as an artist but as a fashion icon as well.
Already as a teenager she claimed to be born in 1910, the year of the Mexican revolution, and practically making herself the youngest of her 3 sisters including Cristina, her younger and prettier sister.
At the age of 25 she painted one of her most shocking paintings: “My Birth”, a small format oil on metal, painted in retablo-style.

This small painting shows how Frida used the retablo (or votive) style to bring her powerful message across. Votive paintings have usually three elements:

• the scene of the accident that was supposed to happen,
• the written description of the accident, and the grace to the saint who saved the person from the accident,
• the image of the holy saviour.

In “My BIrth”  Frida paints only two elements of the three of the votive style: the written thanksgiving to the Madonna at the end of her painting is not written; here Frida indicates that she can’t give thanks to the Madonna as the accident did happen: she was born and the Madonna weeps as she could not stop the “accident” (Frida’s birth) from happening.

Some believe that the imagery of “My Birth” is inspired by an Aztec sculpture Frida had at home representing Tlazolteotl, the Goddess of fertility and midwives, the mother of the Warrior.

“My Birth” belongs to the pop star Madonna who claims that those who do not like this painting are not her friends.

Happy Birthday Frida, we love this and the rest of your paintings!

About the photo: 
Right: #34: Frida Kahlo, My Birth, 1932, 
Oil on metal, 30,5 x 35 cm, Original is in the Private Collection of Madonna. 
Licensed replica by ©Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2008. 
Left: Copy of Tlazolteotl – Aztec Goddess of Fertility and Midwives.

We are again following Fridas footsteps in Mexico City in preparation of our exhibition Frida's Photos which will open in Baden-Baden on June 27th 2015. 

"Who wants to understand Frida, must understand Mexico".

"High society here turns me off and I feel bit of rage against all these rich guys here, since I have seen thousands of people in the most terrible misery,"   Kahlo wrote in 1932 about her time in Detroit.

Painting Nr. 26, Frida Kahlo: 
Display Window in a Street of Detroit 1931
Oil on metal, 30,3 x 38,2 cm
Collection Mr and Mrs Abel Holtz
Gary Nader Fine Art, Miami, Florida, USA

This colorful painting was painted by Frida as a memory of her stay in Detroit.
The painting is dated "1931" but in 1931 Frida was in New York not in Detroit. She moved to Detroit with Diego Rivera in 1932. She may have started the painting in New York and then finished it in Detroit. 

Frida's friend, the photographer Lucienne Bloch, recalls being with Frida in New York when they saw the display window that inspired the painting.  
On the other hand,  Lucienne Bloch remember walking with Frida around the poorer sections of Detroit, and walking  past a closed store that displayed the 4th of July theme.

Frida Kahlo: Marxism Will Give Health to the Sick, ca. 1954
Oil on masonite, 76 x 61 cm, the original is in Frida Kahlo Museum, Mexico-City, Mexico
Licensed replica: ©Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2008.

Photos taken by Stadtmuseum Simeonstift Trier, Germany

From March 17 to October 18 2013, the replica "Marxism will give health to the sick" was on loan to the Stadtmuseum in Trier and was exhibited in the Stadtmuseum for the exhibition: Karl Marx: the Icon, Cult paintings and Paintings of a cult figure, commemorating 130 years from the death of Karl Marx, who was born in the city of Trier.

Frida Kahlo: My Dress Hangs There, 1933

Oil and Collage on masonite, 46 x 50 cm, Original; FEMSA, Monterrey, Mexico

After more than three years in America, Frida wanted desperately to return to Mexico. Diego, however, remained fascinated by the country and did not want to leave. Out of the conflict came this painting. This painting is atypical of Frida’s style; the composition is diffuse with many objects and symbols. Usually Frida Kahlo’s paintings have one central figure, mainly herself. 

This painting represents a portrait of American capitalism and contradictions as Frida saw them in 1933.  It portrays a modern American industrial society which treats people like machines. Frida takes an opposite view to her husband, who was expressing his approval of industrial progress in a mural in the Rockefeller Center. 

Already in 1933, Frida Kahlo illustrates the importance of Wall Street by painting the shares evolution by months over the years from 1931 to 1933; the importance of the oil companies (Standard Oil on the right hand side of the painting); the black telephone cable which, like a spider web, connects everything and everyone.

What is missing from this painting is the focal point of nearly all Frida's paintings…herself. Instead, Frida's Tehuana dress hangs empty and alone, this may be her way of saying "I may be in America but only my dress hangs there…my heart is in Mexico." 

This paintings is made in a mixed mode: oil on wood with collage and tempera.

Painting Nr. 104, Frida Kahlo, Moses, 1945

Oil on masonite, 61 x 75,6 cm, Private collection, Houston, TX
In a written description of this painting, Frida refers to it as "Moses, or Birth of the Hero". For this work Frida was awarded second prize at the annual art exhibition in the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico. 

The inspiration for this painting was provided by Sigmund Freud's book, "Moses the Man and Monotheistic Religion". She was fascinated by the book and painted the picture after finishing the book. This painting was done in the style of a miniature mural. The central figure of the abandoned baby Moses closely resembles Diego, and wears, like Diego in other paintings, the third eye of wisdom on his forehead. The birth is beneath a life giving sun flanked by gods, heroes, common humanity, and the all-embracing hands of death. In the foreground a conch spurting fluid into a concave shell is, Frida said, a symbol of love. Fresh, leafy branches sprouting from dead tree trunks refer to the life/death cycle that appears in many of Frida's paintings.