The tragic story of Frida Kahlo: a shattered body that tortured her and the infidelities of her husband, lover even her sister

They returned from school.They were distracted, talking, on the passenger bus driven by Jesús Belmont.In the corner of Cuauhtemotzín and San Antonio Abad Calzada streets, a tram of the Tlalpan line, managed by J.Gómez, did not stop on time and embedded fully against the vehicle in which they were traveling, brutally crushing it against a wall.

Sobre el piso quedó desbaratada una joven de 18 años llamada Frida Kahlo. En el choque había perdido parte de su ropa y estaba totalmente ensangrentada.A golden powder (it was gold that carried in an envelope a worker that was passenger) covered it like a brilliant mantle.The composition of the scene was like a picture, as colorful and heartbreaking as those she would paint in the near future.

After a while two Red Cross ambulances arrived. Frida Kahlo se debatía entre la vida y la muerte.Her boyfriend, Alejandro Gómez Arias, had only suffered strong blows to the hip.It was Thursday, September 17, 1925 and the clock marked the 19.30.

Frida was taken, with other injured, to the hospital.The prognosis was gloomy. Nadie garantizaba que fuera a sobrevivir.He had the column split in three parts in the lumbar area;two ribs and a broken clavicle;eleven fractures in one of his legs;One foot and a shoulder dislocated. Para colmo, el pasamanos metálico había atravesado su pelvis y salido por su vagina.The witnesses of the accident reported that, when a man put a knee on him and pulled the metal bar that had embedded, he shouted so strong that his screams covered the sound of the ambulances that were approaching.

They had to rearm their skeleton, with patience and expertise. Frida Kahlo no murió ese día, pero se ganó el pasaporte al dolor perpetuo. El tremendo accidente la obligó a masticar el tiempo y las angustias, pero le otorgó al mundo una pintora magistral, porque sus talentos no tuvieron más remedio que salir a flote.

Poly pandemic

Frida nació el 6 de julio de 1907 y fue la tercera hija mujer del segundo matrimonio del fotógrafo alemán de origen judeo-húngaro, Guillermo Kahlo.Guillermo had arrived in Mexico, in 1890, escaping family turbulence and a stepmother that harassed him.

La madre de Frida se llamaba Matilde Calderón, y por sus venas corría sangre indígena.A year before Frida was born the only male son of the family.They called him as the father, but happiness lasted nothing to them, the baby died after six days. Luego de Frida, la pareja tuvo una hija más, a la que llamaron Cristina.She was her great friend and companion, but also responsible for the worst betrayal in her adult life.

The Kahlo family lived in a house on London Street, at number 247, in the Coyoacán neighborhood, in Mexico City. Hoy esa vivienda es conocida como la Casa Azul, y fue convertida en museo después de la muerte de la pintora.

A los 6 años Frida tuvo el primer cachetazo de la vida: se contagió de poliomielitis en medio de una pandemia que asolaba al mundo.He had to spend in bed new months. Como resultado de esa peste, una pierna le quedó escuálida y sin fuerza.It was his father who encouraged her to her rehabilitation.The little girl began to practice sports that were not common among the women of her generation: football and boxing.In addition, swimming and cycling.While that did not avoid the teasing of his companions, he somehow enabled her to feel different and stronger.

The Frida Resilient had begun its path of thorns.In addition, he had understood that his father's distressing fainting were the product of a disorder called epilepsy.When his father fell to the floor in the middle of a seizure, Frida put a handkerchief in her mouth so that she did not bite her tongue.

Accident, boredom and brushes

In 1922, with 15 years, Frida entered the National Preparatory School, one of the most prestigious in Mexico.From there came brilliant minds. Frida ya había aprendido que ser distinta podía ser una ventaja.

There were only 35 women among 2.000 alumnos, así que enseguida se destacó por su carácter rebelde y se unió a una banda de jóvenes intelectuales comprometidos con la política estudiantil, que combatían la autoridad y propulsaban reformas.In that group, which called the cachuchas, for wearing fabric hats that challenged the strict canons of the time, there were only two women.

The overturning of his life would occur on Thursday, three years later, when his body got rid of, broken in a thousand pieces, under the tram.

When he returned from the hospital to his home in Coyoacán, a month later, he had no choice but to observe the world from another perspective: the horizontal. No podía sentarse, por lo cual su madre encargó la confección de un caballete que se armó sobre una especie de andamio para que ella pudiera pintar acostada.The device also had a light.On the roof they had located a mirror that allowed him to look at and thus be his own model.

So he found a way to accelerate the time clock that had become an eternal variable. Su padre fue quien le prestó sus pinceles y óleos para entretenerla.In parallel to that creative leisure, Frida had to endure its slow reconstruction.That was something that would last his life.

Varios corsés de yeso y acero sucesivos fueron sosteniendo su maltratada columna vertebral, y su pie dislocado requería de un aparato especialmente diseñado. Si bien algunos de sus huesos se fueron soldando, necesitaría un total de 32 cirugías para reparar su cuerpo.The physical torture became his only faithful route companion.

The first self -portrait he made from her bed was an oil where she was wrapped in a velvet suit.He did it for her boyfriend of that time, Alejandro Gómez Arias, and trying to imitate a painting that he admired: the birth of Venus de Botticelli.He gave it to him when they were distanced, at the end of 1926.The love strategy worked and began to leave again. Pero los padres de Alejandro no aprobaban a Frida, así que le inventaron a su hijo un largo viaje a Europa en marzo de 1927.The idea was to move them away.Alejandro returned the painting to Frida before leaving: he feared that his parents got rid of the work.

Diego, his enormous and great love

Frida had a while to overcome this loss.But she was very entertaining with the policy and convulsion in which her country was immersed. Curiosamente, sería con este cuadro devuelto que seduciría al gran pintor Diego Rivera, el verdadero amor de su vida.

The legend tells (in the stories there are always versions found) that Frida would have met the famous artist when he painted a huge mural in the amphitheater of the National Preparatory School where she was one of the few and young students. Frida lo habría perseguido para verlo trabajar y le habría dicho a sus compañeras: “Mi ambición es tener un hijo de Diego Rivera, y se lo voy a decir un día”. Sus amigas se rieron, Rivera era un hombre mayor, enorme y panzón.But Frida said it seriously.

La otra historia dice que fue a través de la pareja de Julio Antonio Mella (comunista cubano, exiliado en México) y Tina Modotti (italiana, fotógrafa y activista revolucionaria en el partido comunista mexicano) que llegó hasta Rivera (quien era también un comunista militante). Habría sido Frida la que decidió ir a verlo para mostrarle sus trabajos mientras él realizaba una serie de murales.He took him to see four paintings, but the one who impacted the famous painter was the one who had given his former Alejandro as a gift. Le pareció distinto y le dijo: “Tienes talento, sigue pintando”.

Aunque él le llevaba diecinueve años, el romance fue inmediato.For Frida's parents, Diego Rivera was not a good candidate.He came from two divorces and was a declared communist, something very difficult for a conservative family.But, on the other hand, he knew how to be seductive and charming, in addition, he was a cult and millionaire. La relación terminó en casamiento el 21 de agosto de 1929.

The small party was held on the Tina Modotti terrace, and the person in charge of Mexican food that was served in the celebration was nothing less than the ex -wife of Diego.Something that would anticipate the couple's timeless love.

Diego, with 43 years, was huge and nicknamed the elephant;Frida, with 22, was small and fragile, and called her dove.That same day of the wedding there were a couple of unusual events. La ex mujer de Diego Rivera, Lupe Marín, enojada porque él no le pasaba dinero para sus hijas de 5 y 2 años, le habría levantado la falda a Frida para exponer su pierna debilitada y bromear con ello delante de los invitados: “Miren por qué par de piernas me ha cambiado Diego Rivera”.Things did not end there: later, very drunk, Rivera began shooting in the air.Frida, scandalized, wanted to stop him, but he pushed her violently and she ended up lying on the floor. La novia se sintió tan humillada en público que se retiró y, por unos días, no volvió a la casa.

Incredible as it may seem, Lupe and Frida ended up being friends.

Three children who were not

En el año 1930, su gran anhelo de ser madre pareció que iba a concretarse.She became pregnant, but at a short gestation time the doctors said that by the sequelae of the accident the baby was forming in a totally unfeasible position.A therapeutic abortion should be done, and they predicted that it was most likely that I could never have children.Frida sank into an abyss.

A year later, the couple moved to San Francisco, United States.Rivera had been commissioned a series of murals in that country and, on the other hand, politics in Mexico had become complicated for those who thought like them and militated on the left.

En la ciudad norteamericana Frida conoció a un gran cirujano llamado Leo Eloesser, quien se convirtió, además, en su gran amigo y confidente.Finishing their job commitments, the couple traveled to New York for a sample and then Detroit for other artistic orders of Rivera.In 1931 Frida wrote a letter to his mother where he said: "Diego is good with me and loves me (even right now)". Pero ya por entonces los amoríos de Diego Rivera con otras mujeres habían comenzado, y Frida lo sospechaba y sufría.

In Detroit, Frida became pregnant again.It was 1932 and put Dr. Eloesser recommended his friend.Frida was radiant of happiness.

A los tres meses y medio de gestación, el 4 de julio de 1932, tuvo una gran hemorragia y perdió espontáneamente al bebé.He wrote to Eloesser: "I had a lot of hope of having little Dieguito, who was going to cry a lot ... But now what happened what happened, there is nothing more to accept it".

That new and painful loss was overturned by Frida in a painting known as Henry Ford Hospital. Su desolación la reflejó pintándose desnuda, en una cama del hospital, sobre una sábana blanca empapada de sangre.From his left eye a great tear falls and six red veins emerge from his belly that, such as umbilical laces, connect with other symbolic images.In the center, there is the baby who was not born.

Her husband, Diego Rivera, immediately noticed the importance of this painting. Frida estaba haciendo algo que ninguna otra pintora había hecho antes: plasmar con fuerza brutal lo más visceral de su existencia en un lienzo.

That summer also died of Frida's mother while she was operated in the gallbladder.A blow after another.

Of love and fury

Frida missed her country a lot.When they returned to Mexico in 1934 Frida and Diego settled in the San Ángel neighborhood in two houses that made a bridge located on the terraces of both buildings.Here, she was pregnant again.The third son was on the way, but the disappointment would be inevitable. Este bebé tampoco llegaría a nacer.

Ese mismo año tuvieron que amputarle a Frida unos dedos del pie derecho.Concentrated more than ever on painting.It was the only thing that gave him peace.

Diego's romances with other women were not unknown.Of those "others" will say that they were young painters of great talent. Y, según ella misma escribió sobre Diego, el talento “siempre está en relación directa con la temperatura de sus bajos”.

The great betrayal would happen in those two United Houses of San Ángel. Frida había hecho que Diego contratara a su hermana menor Cristina como secretaria.He had also convinced Cristina to be his naked model for a work he was doing and that was called knowledge and purity.

Diego never repressed any impulse towards the opposite genre. La hermana y su marido terminaron traicionando a Frida sin el menor escrúpulo. Ella sospechó, además, que esa relación había nacido muchísimos años antes.This time he couldn't stand such affront and left his house.

Shortly after, Frida painted her bloodiest picture, a few piquetitos: there a woman lies on a bed after her partner's stabs.What I had read in the newspaper about what that man had said frightened her: according to the criminal he had only given him a few "piquetitos" (punctures). Frida vomitó su horror en la tela donde derramó tanta sangre como le pareció necesaria para comprometer al espectador y que no quede indiferente.Although there are those who said that he also reflected his feeling for the betrayal he had lived from Diego and Cristina.

De aquella época Frida dijo: “Han ocurrido dos accidentes en mi vida.One is the tram;The other is Diego.Diego was the worst of all ".

But Frida and Diego needed each other, so the reunion would be inevitable.A year later the couple reconciled.But Frida, that seemed tacitly accepted Rivera's slips, was not far behind.He also lived his romances.She was awarded several loves with men and also with women. Entre ellas, la artista Georgia O’Keeffe, la bailarina Jospehine Baker y la actriz Dolores del Río. Sin embargo, esos amores lésbicos no enojaron tanto a Rivera como el que Frida vivió con el escultor Isamu Noguchi.He got so furious that he pointed them out with a weapon to end the romance.Another Long Amario de Frida was with a photographer who lived in New York.

Despite the broncas and betrayals lived, in 1936, Frida was friends with her younger sister and frequented her nephews again.

A Russian revolutionary between the sheets

En 1937, el revolucionario ruso de origen ucraniano León Trotski fue cobijado, junto con su esposa Natalia Sedova, en la casa de la familia de Frida en Coyoacán. Llegó a México escapando del líder ruso Iósif Stalin, que había dado la orden de liquidarlo. En los primeros meses, León y Frida, admiración política mediante, habrían tenido un intenso romance que no prosperó, según se cree, porque la esposa de León le habría dado un ultimátum a su marido.

Friendly relationships continued.In fact, both Frida and Diego admired Trotsky, and said "Trotskyists".

En 1939 Frida se involucra con el médico Heinz Berggruen en Nueva York. Por su parte, Diego Rivera sale con la pintora Irene Bohus y con la actriz norteamericana Paulette Goddard. Finalmente, el 6 de noviembre de 1939, Diego toma coraje y le pide el divorcio a Frida.

Frida, depressed, takes refuge in her family's house in Coyoacán and in Coñac. Y no para de pintar.On that unfortunate time he told his friends, at a party: "I wanted to drown my sorrows in liquor, but the convicted ones learned to swim".

At that time, Diego and Frida were already politically distanced from León Trotsky, who left the Blue House and settled in another, in the same neighborhood.

En esa nueva morada, el 20 de agosto de 1940, fue asesinado por un partidario de Stalin llamado Ramón Mercader.The murderer had infiltrated his intimate circle by getting a boyfriend with one of his secretaries.Mercader had made friends with Russian dissident. La tarde en que lo mató ingresó con la excusa de mostrarle un texto, subió hasta su despacho y le clavó en la cabeza un pica hielo de montañismo. Trotski gritó desaforadamente y alcanzó a salir del escritorio para decirle a su mujer quién era el culpable.Then he faded and died the next day.

Frida became accused of being an accomplice of merchant in the homicide.She was arrested and was arrested two days in jail before being released.The suspicions had fallen to her because she had dinner with merchant.From the police incident he said: “My sister and I spent two days crying in jail.They released us because we were not guilty or the murder or the bullets ”.

Reofidate with the same man

A short time later, Frida traveled to San Francisco to operate with Dr. Eloesser.The reunion with his ex was so strong that they decided to get married on December 8, 1940. Pero esta vez Frida impuso sus propias reglas: vivirían juntos, compartirán los gastos y su amor por el arte, pero no tendrían ninguna vida sexual.

As a counterpart the list of lovers of both becomes infinite. Él seduce a la artista Rina Lazo; ella tiene un affaire con el pintor Joseph Bartoli. Ella coquetea con Chavela Vargas cuando le escribe al poeta Carloso Pellicer: “Extraordinaria, lesbiana, es más se me antojó eróticamente”.Although that letter might not be true, the truth is that Frida's relationships with women were not a secret to anyone.

En 1949 Rivera se enamoró de la actriz María Félix.Frida, although she lived her own passions, suffered the infidelities of her husband. Hay quienes sostienen que entre María, Frida y Diego existía, en realidad, un triángulo amoroso, debido a que la actriz pasaba largas temporadas en la Casa Azul de Coyoacán.

Goodbye to one leg

The painter applauded by André Breton, the father of surrealism, sharply refused to be considered an expression of the movement: "I do not paint dreams, he said, I paint realities".It's true. Volcaba en el lienzo calaveras, símbolos religiosos, presagios, la tragedia de la vida misma a todo color. La vida le dolía y a ella le brotaban pinturas.

“I lost three children and another series of things that would have filled my existence.The painting occupied the place of all that, ”he said.

Frida's health path never improved.On the contrary, it worsened over time.Successive internments, an attempt at bone transplant that failed and...The pain, always pain.Meanwhile, he continued with his classes and painting.He just needed to have his own exposure.

In April 1953, his desire was carried out in the contemporary art gallery.Frida's health was so deteriorated that doctors forbade him.She never contemplated the idea of missing what she wanted most in the world. Hizo poner una cama de hospital en el medio de la muestra y una ambulancia la trasladó hasta el lugar.Before, all possible medications were taken to diminish their torments.The press and the guests were shocked when they saw her appear adorned with her typical costumes and ornaments.Frida was happy, sang the classic Mexican runs and took to the fed up.

Four months later, in August 1953, he went to his consultation with Dr. Juan Farrill.He carefully checked his right leg and his foot, where there were only three fingers.

"What is it going to cut me, doctor? Another finger? Asked Frida. Farrill le explicó que como causa de la gangrena debería hacer algo mucho más drástico: amputarle la pierna derecha. Se le cortaron por debajo de la rodilla.With irony and acidity, she commented after surgery: "Feet ... What do I need feet if I have wings to fly".

Era tal enojo de Frida Kahlo por lo ocurrido que, al principio, se negó a usar la pierna de madera. Le parecía antiestética y, además, le causaba mucho dolor.But I had no options if I wanted to move.He started trying with small steps.Little by little, it seemed that he had accepted the idea because he had even commissioned that he was manufactured a red boots.

In 1954 he faced more health inconveniences.He refused to be helped. En mayo, se cayó de su cama con tanta mala suerte que se clavó una aguja en un glúteo que debieron sacarle en el hospital.I was sorry, nervous and sore.In July, he was diagnosed with bronchopneumonia.He had to take care of himself, but there was no way he listened.Perhaps at this point it was already invincible or sought the end of course as it may be.Many times he had wanted to leave the Calvary of his life taking pills and soothing!The truth is that this cold night she left to participate in a political march.The next day it got worse. Murió un martes 13, de hace 67 años, a pocos días de haber cumplido los 47 años.Myths apart, it does not seem accidental the day he left.Tuesday refers to the red planet, the destruction and the Roman god of war.And, Tuesday 13, in the popular imaginary it is usually an omen of bad luck.Anyway.Frida Kahlo left, but she left us her incredible work (more than 200 jobs) and her beautiful blue house. En la última línea de su diario había escrito antes de partir: “Espero alegre la salida y espero no volver jamás”.

Luego de su muerte, Diego aseveró en una entrevista: “Tuve la suerte de amar a la mujer más maravillosa que he conocido. Ella fue la poesía y el genio mismo (...) Unfortunately I did not know how to love her alone, because I have always been unable to love a single woman ". Y agregó: “No tuve moral alguna y viví para el placer, doquiera que lo encontrara… Frida solo fue la víctima más obvia de esta desagradable característica de mi personalidad”.

Post Scriptum: Quizá, esas botas rojas fueran la mejor elección para simbolizar sus pasiones intensas, la sangre derramada, sus rojos pensamientos, los hijos no nacidos y la idea de que ella no cedería, jamás, su lugar en el podio de las mujeres fuertes, visibles, para convertirse en víctima de nada.

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