Biography of Frida Kahlo Even though Mexico is known as the mariachi land and not for its famous painters, Mexico has produced a few painters that are very famous and known today around the world. One of these painters is a woman, Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderon, who today is better known just as Frida Kahlo. She is famous for her self-portraits that depict her suffering as she was growing up and as wife of another famous Mexican painter, Diego Rivera.
Frida Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907, in Coyoacan, Mexico. She was the daughter of Guillermo Kahlo, a Hungarian Jew and notable Mexican photographer, and Matilde Calderon, who was of Spanish and Indian descent. Frida Kahlo was the third of the four daughters to be born of Matilde's and Guillermo's marriage. Frida's older sisters were Matilde and Adriana and the younger one was Adriana. Frida also had two half-sisters, Maria Luisa and Margarita, who were born of Guillermo's first marriage with another Mexican woman who die in childbirth (Herrera, 10-11).
English: Portrait of Diego Rivera and Frida Rivera...
Portrait of Diego Rivera and Malu Block and Frida ...
House of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo (built by Ju...Soon after Frida was born, her mother became pregnant again and thus was unable to be breast-fed by her mother. Therefore, Frida was nursed for a time by an Indian wet nurse and was unable to be close to her mother for a time (Craver, 1). When Frida's mother gave birth to the younger of the sisters, Christina, Matilde became sick and Frida and Christina were taken cared of by their older sisters (Herrera, 11).
Throughout her childhood in Coyoacan, Frida had a difficult life not just because her mother was constantly ill but because she also became eventually ill. At the early age of six years, Frida caught the terrible disease of poliomyelitis (polio). This disease forced Frida to stay in her room for...