Aloha Everyone,
La Casa Azul (the Blue House), where Frida Kahlo lived and died, is not a happy place. Frida’s vibrant, unorthodox and unimaginably tragic life was also what made her to become an iconic Mexican artist.
Frida contacted polio when she was 6 years old. It left her physically disabled and in poor health. When she was 18, a horrific traffic accident left her with lifelong pains and continuous medical problems.
A self-taught artist whose unique style and unconventional treatment of subjects was both acclaimed and reproached by the public, peers and art critics.
Frida is also known as the wife of Diego Rivera, another prominent Mexican artist. Despite the 20 years age differences plus he already had two wives, they fell in love and married. Frida and Diego’s divorce, remarriage, volatile and unfaithful relationships over the span of 25 years is documented through her paintings, biographies and movies.
Frida Kahlo was one of the idols of my Art Psychology professor. After so many years, one of the quotes by Frida Kahlo, which my instructor used to utter, came back to me.
“I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint.”
The museum requires far more time and less visitors for one to truly appreciate the home in which Frida Kahlo lived and worked. Many of her important works are either in private collection or housed in museums around the world, leaving the collection in La Casa Azul rather disappointing.
If you live near a major museum, I urge you to view Frida Kahlo’s works. They often are not pretty or decorative. Her works are powerful, haunting, stir your senses and provoke your imaginations.
Aloha -- Cathi