From time to time a chance meeting can alter the course of your life. In this case, the crossing of these two dynamic souls' paths redirected art history.
Diego Rivera showed great promise as an artist beginning at a young age. At the age of twenty-one he was sponsored by the Governor of Veracruz to study art in Spain. He shortly after moved to Paris to work and paint.
He was living during the birth of Cubism and followed his contemporaries in this style until he came across the paintings of Cezanne and changed his style to more simplistic figures with bright colors. He had found his style that would remain in the minds of generations to come.
This time in Paris is when he met the Russian artist Angelina Beloff and it did not take long for the two to fall in love and marry. Their marriage was hit with many hardships. The First World War put dire financial stress on those in the art community, making it difficult to purchase the necessary supplies. Angelina decided to put Diego's artistic career ahead of her own so that she could work and support his brilliance as his art began to gain notoriety.
Things only became more difficult when the two had a son who was not long for this world. At a little over a year old the child died of lung complications. Diego only added more strife to the relationship siring a daughter with another woman shortly after. The two remained together through these hardships, for Angelina truly believed in his work.
When Diego was thirty-four he decided to travel through Italy to gain a better perspective of the Renaissance painters. Upon his return to France, he was asked to come back to Mexico by the Minister of Education to be involved in a government sponsored mural program following the Mexican revolution. Still stricken by poverty, the couple could only afford to send Diego on this voyage. He never returned to Angelina.
It did not take long for Diego to fall in love once again while in Mexico. Within a year of his reunion with his home country, he married the model and novelist Guadalupe Marin. She accompanied him as an assistant and model for his first government sponsored mural at the National Preparatory School in Mexico City. Here he was going to experiment in encaustic, the mixing of pigment and beeswax for his first significant mural, Creation.
Frida Kahlo was one of only a handful of female students admitted to the National Preparatory School in Mexico City. She was focusing on the natural sciences with hopes of becoming a doctor, due to her own battles with Polio as a child. The disease had left her with a limp but had no affect on her spirit.
Frida had a history of being disobedient, being expelled from a previous school for being insubordinate, but her academic prowess gained her admittance to this elite academic institution. She formed an informal rebellious Communist group called the Cachuchas. They would pull pranks, fight against conservatism, perform plays, and openly debate philosophy and politics with their peers. Many of the members of this group grew up to become the Mexican intelligentsia.
Diego was painting his mural the first time he encountered Frida's voice. She snuck into the Bolivar Auditorium and hid behind one of the great columns. She peaked from her hiding space and saw the portly artist hard at work mixing color into the wax preparing to bring his next figure to life.
She smirked and shouted, "Watch out Diego, Nahui is coming!"
Nahui was the native name of one of the painters that was posing for Rivera's mural.
Diego turned and looked out into the empty auditorium. He cocked his head at the peculiar heckle and then returned to his work, but this voice reverberated constantly in his mind. It was not for several nights until this voice introduced itself in the flesh.
Rivera was up on the scaffolding while his wife was busy assisting below. Voices of students bounced off the large wooden doors of the entrance to the auditorium. The commotion outside continued to intensify as the doors began to heave like they were struggling to breathe occasionally coughing out loud bangs. The entrance's respiration quickened as if it was struggling for air until like an explosion the doors burst open.
A mob of students stumbled through, at the front a young Frida, hair covering her face. She pulled back her hair and as she looked up she locked eyes with the muralist. A youthful face, but oddly dignified. Deep eyes veiled by thick eyebrows gave this newly developed young girl the poise of a woman.
She stepped forward and earnestly requested, "Would it be of any nuisance if I watched you work?"
Diego turned on the scaffold with one hand on his pistol that he kept in case of threatening right wing students.
"Of course not my dear, it would be my pleasure."
Frida walked to the front and sat down. Her eyes focused on the painter. She followed his every movement, his every stroke. As paint became creation, her world transformed into pigment growing on walls. Nothing else seemed to exist. Each brush reshaped reality.
Guadalupe scoffed at this young girl so fixated on her husband. She would glare at the child, but Frida's eyes never averted from the artist.
"What a strange girl this is," she mocked to her husband. "Just sitting there staring at you like a child possessed." Diego chuckled at his wife's jealousy of the girl.
This furthered Guadalupe's anger at this insolent child fixated on her husband. She decided it was time to scare this starstruck pest from her perch. She stomped over to Frida and with hands on her hips bent at the waist to the point her nose threatened to collide with the child's.
"What an odd little thing you are. Just sitting here staring like a moth to a light. Shouldn't you be running around being a student and not pestering artists with your incessant hovering. This is not a normal thing for you to be doing."
Frida simply met Guadalupe's stare and unnervingly reciprocated the glare without showing much concern for this woman berading her. She looked straight through her not letting her eyes distract from anything but this woman's pupils. Guadalupe flinched first, smiled, and then marched up to her husband on the scaffold.
"Look at this girl, as small as she is, she is not intimidated by a tall, strong woman such as myself. I really like her."
Frida stayed in the same position observing the muralist paint for a few more hours. Still she never moved, eyes forever locked on the creation of the masterpiece. Then suddenly she stood up said good night and left, not to be seen by Diego for years to come. He learned a year later from the director the name of this young girl from the director who was complaining that because of Frida Kahlo and her friends he was considering resigning.
Frida continued working towards becoming a doctor, but her dream came crashing down in an instant when she was just eighteen. On their way home from school, Frida and her then boyfriend, a fellow Cachucha, were riding in a wooden bus when it collided with a streetcar. The accident killed several people and nearly took Frida's life as well. The impact broke her ribs, collarbone, and both of her legs. During the crash a handrail came loose and impaled Frida in the pelvis fracturing her pelvic bone and displaced three vertebrates.
Kahlo was confined to her bed in a plaster corset for the better part of two years after leaving the hospital. The isolation left Frida to her thoughts and she found a release from the solitary confinements of her mind. She had an easel rigged so she could paint in bed. She attached a mirror to the top so could make self-portraits. In this time she painted mostly herself, her sisters, and images of her classmates. She wanted to paint them in the way she saw them and only the way she envisioned them in reality.
She was already twenty by the time she was able to reunite with her friends. By this time they had already began university and Frida was well behind. She quickly joined the Mexican Communist Party and met activists, artists, and the occasional political exile. She learned from a member of her group that Diego Rivera was painting a fresco at the Ministry of Education and decided he could help her decide her future.
Diego was in the midst of painting from the scaffolding when a familiar sound came from below. He looked down at the young petite woman with her thick signature eyebrows staring up at him.
"Diego, will you please come down? I have something important to discuss with you."
Without recognizing who was making this demand of him, he obliged and started making his way down the scaffolding.
"Now, I am not here for fun. I need to make a living and I have made some paintings that I would like you to look at as a professional. I want your opinion on whether I have the potential to make a career as an artist or if I am just self-indulging my vanity. I have brought three with me. Will you come and take a look at them?"
Rivera stepped onto the pavement and agreed to look at the young woman's paintings. He followed her to a cubicle under the staircase where she had stored her work. She turned each of her paintings to face Diego. Each one was a portrait of a woman. Diego's eyes widened as the impressive work revealed itself. The paintings were honest and not overly original as many young artists try to make in a vain mistake of being unique. The work displayed the necessary sensuality casted by a genuine and realist observer. Flaws were shown and the beauty accentuated but without losing the humanity of the subject. This girl was a true artist.
Frida noticed the enthusiasm in Diego's face and pursed her lips. She was well aware of his womanizing past and was not here looking for motivated flattery.
"Now I have not come here looking for compliments. I want the criticism of a professional. I'm not an art lover or an amateur. I am simply a girl who must make a living."
"In my opinion, no matter how difficult it is for you, you must continue to paint."
"Ok then I will. I have one more favor to ask of you. Sunday will you come to my place to see the rest of my work?"
Diego quickly agreed, already feeling smitten by this headfast talented girl.
After giving him her address, she told him her name.
"I'm Frida Kahlo by the way."
This name took a moment to resonate. Then he remembered his conversation with the school director many years ago.
"Wait, but you're..."
Frida pressed her finger to his lips. "Yeah, so what? I was the girl in the auditorium. That has nothing to do with now. Do you still want to come Sunday or not?"
Diego had to hide the excitement in his voice for fear that his invitation might be rescinded. He simply answered, "Yes."
With that Frida grabbed her canvases, refusing help from Rivera, and left. The large colored sails flapped in the wind from underneath her arms
Diego arrived promptly that Sunday at the address given to him. His palms were beginning to sweat as he knocked on the door. Nervousness was building in his chest as he waited on this tantalizing girl to come to the door.
To his surprise the answer came from above in a tree. He looked up to see the young woman dressed in overalls climbing down the branches. Giggling she grabbed Diego by the hand and pulled him inside quickly passing through the house to Frida's bedroom. She began parading painting after painting past the amused muralist. Her energy and excitement entranced the artist twenty years her senior.
Diego returned daily in romantic pursuit of this enchanting young woman. On his fourth visit they had their first kiss. Within the year, he left Guadalupe and their two children and married Frida, much to the disdain of their parents.
Their tumultuous love affair would last until the death of Frida Kahlo. But even though their marriage was full of infidelity, by both parties, the two remained fervent that the other was the one that they were supposed to be with.
