She originally did not plan to become an artist. Polio survivor, at 15 Kahlo entered premedical program at the National Preparatory School in Mexico City. Nevertheless, this training ended three years later when Kahlo seriously injured in bus accident. She spent a year in bed, recovering from a fracture back, collarbone and ribs, and shattered pelvis and shoulder and foot injuries. Despite more than 30 subsequent operations, Kahlo spent the rest of his life in constant pain, finally succumbed to complications at the age of 47 years.
During her convalescence Kahlo began to paint in oil. Her paintings, mostly self-portraits and still lifes, deliberately naive, filled with bright colors and flattened forms of popular Mexican art, she loves. At 21, Kahlo fell in love with Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, whose approach to art and politics fit differently.
Although he was 20 years her senior, they married in 1929, it is stormy, passionate relationship survived infidelities, the pressure career Rivera, divorce and remarriage, as well as poor health in Kahlo. Pair a trip to the United States and France, where Kahlo met fixtures from the world of art and politics, and it was her first solo exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in 1938.
Kahlo enjoyed considerable success in the 1940, but its reputation grew after his death, beginning with the 1980's with the publication of several books about his work by feminist art historians and others. Over the past two decades an explosion Kahlo-inspired films, games, calendars, and jewelry has transformed the artist into a cult figure.
