
In 1895, when he was 24 years old, he married for the first time: Maria Cardena. They had two daughters: Maria Luisa and Margarita.
In 1898, the night Wilhelm’s wife died giving birth to their third child, he asked Antonio Calderón for his daughter Matilde’s hand in marriage. Matilde would be the future mother of Frida and her sisters.
Six months later Wilhelm and Matilde were married. After the wedding, Kahlo sent his daughters from the first marriage away to be raised in a covent, Maria Luisa was three years old and Margarita was 6 months old.
Frida and her sisters had little contacts with their two half-sisters in their early childhood; only later in their lives they built a relationship with Maria Luisa and Margarita.
Photos showing Wilhelm Kahlo with the two daughters from his first marriage are extremely rare, and they were taken only in the last years of his life.