Frida Kahlo In Love & Pain

This lecture will explore the life of Frida Kahlo, one of the most famous and iconic Mexican artists of the twentieth century. It will situate her within an extraordinary historical context and explore her family background and her battle as a child with polio. Her flamboyant character will be set against her deep sadness in love and in pain after an appalling accident left her disabled physically but able to paint while in her hospital bed. We will chart her meeting with the great figure of Diego Rivera, muralist and revolutionary, and her subsequent love affair with him, their turbulent marriage, divorce and re-marriage. Often scrutinising her self-portraits, we will see her rise to international fame, her liaisons with extraordinary characters of the time such as Leon Trotsky, and her untimely and very public death in 1954.