Frida Kahlo

Surrealist painter Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) transformed personal suffering into powerful art that has become globally iconic. Born in Coyoacán, Mexico to a German father and mestiza mother, she contracted polio as a child and was severely injured in a bus accident at 18, leaving her with lifelong pain. During recovery, she began painting self-portraits using a mirror attached to her bed canopy.

Kahlo's work draws on Mexican folk art, pre-Columbian imagery, and her own physical and emotional experiences. Of her 143 paintings, 55 are self-portraits exploring identity, pain, and her tumultuous marriage to muralist Diego Rivera. André Breton championed her as a Surrealist, though she rejected the label, saying she painted her own reality. The Two Fridas (1939) shows two versions of herself connected by exposed hearts. Her home, the Blue House (Casa Azul) in Coyoacán, is now a museum. Works hang at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City and museums worldwide. In 2025, The Dream sold for $54.7 million, a record for any female artist.