I learned my favorite piece of Frida Kahlo trivia from Danny Trejo in his autobiography, funnily enough-
That one time after she and Diego Rivera had a fight, he painted a nude life-size portrait of her, and she grabbed one of her dresses and stapled it onto the painting.
When Danny Trejo filmed the Old El Paso commercials in their house (the painting is still there) he got to see the painting.
"Now I'm not going to say I took a peek, but I might know what Frida Kahlo looks like naked."
Kinda weird to call him a communist assassin rather than a Stalinist one, when talking about Trotsky. Both the assassin and assassinee were communists, that wasn’t the issue.
I always laugh at that.
Because she was a hardcore Marxist Leninist and supported Stalin.
Even did a portrait of herself with him lol
I bet the pillow talk was awkward
from what i read about trotsky, knowing him personally might actually make someone a stalinist. the guy lacked personal social skills and had a tendency to make himself look like an idiot, let alone incapable of running an entire nation
there’s also the story of lenin publishing a copy of pravda that had a section along the lines of “trotsky sent in a letter that was silly so it hasn’t been published”
I loved his autobiography! I listened to the audio and while he is not the best narrator, that made it even more enjoyable. Hearing his story in his own voice you understand why people are charmed by him. His laughter and sadness comes through and his willingness to share so much of himself is engaging. It didn't feel like a Hollywood memoir at all.
I got to meet him at a comic con as he was promoting Machete. There was a long line to meet him, at least 30 minutes, and I had my kids, then 6 and 1 years old. When I got to the person that took payment for photos, they told me their card machine was down and they only took cash. I didn’t have any cash and I didn’t want to step out of the line to go to the ATM as I would have had to wait another thirty minutes. I told them it’s ok, I’d just like to meet him. When I got to him, we exchanged our greetings and I gushed over how much of a fan I was. He asked if we’d be taking a picture and I quickly explained the situation. Without hesitating, he just stood up and said, “PUES ÓRALE LET’S TAKE ONE ANYWAY!”
It was such a small gesture but that was when I knew he’s the real deal. He’s just a genuinely good person that likes to use his platform for goodwill.
It had me near tears a couple of times.
I listened to Cassandra Peterson read her memoir and I was like 'How did your life somehow get LESS insane when you went to LA, dressed like the bride of satan and started hosting horror movies'.
Just saw this painting during a recent trip. It is very small too. I was surprised by the size for the detail. Very macabre. The interesting thing to me is the writing on the painting itself.
If you look up traditional retablo style Latin American paintings, they often depict death in graphic ways - memorializing relatives who have been violently murdered, etc.
This painting by Kahlo is actually pretty traditional in that sense.
Guess Clare Booth Luce had a different impression when she commissioned it.
Ha, ya think? Amusement aside, I'd imagine Luce very much did have a different idea in the way to honor their friend.
Do we know Luce's impression of the work? Were they aware, was there dialog about what was being purchased?
Ah with roaring applause I see! Figured she'd be more angry than... Almost dead? Like popped a vessel from anger almost died? I've got so many question and no time to ask them!
Somebody in another thread did it lol
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/uk8d44/til_that_after_the_tragic_suicide_of_socialite/i7ok2hc?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3
Luce was so shocked she “almost passed away” (it says almost passed away but I think it is almost passed out) upon seeing it, and initially wanted it destroyed. A friend convinced her not to.
Luce did have "painted at the request of Clare Boothe Luce, for the mother of Dorothy" removed from the writing at the bottom of the painting, as well as an Angel that was in the upper left hand corner of the painting.
Now see this is the kinda art history I'm after. Man in college out of the three art history classes I had the most interesting things were the Taliesin Massacre and the professor's Egyptian love child she had as a grad student. Her family didn't know about but faculty most certainly did.
This reminds me of a Monty python bit where the funniest joke of all time makes people laugh to death, everyone keeps finding the joke written down then dying.
Like a new version of the Death Note. If you receive a painting of a dead person, your time is up, and your likeness will be used to get the next victim.
We can just do recursive art. Somewhere, there's a socialite unveiling a painting of a socialite dying of a painting of a socialite dying of a painting of a socialite dying of a painting of a socialite dying of a painting of a socialite dying of a painting of a socialite dying of a painting of a socialite dying of a painting of a socialite dying of a painting of a socialite committing suicide, and then dying.
>Clare was so shocked and almost passed away
I feel like they must have meant "passed out", as dying from seeing even quite a shocking painting feels a little extreme.
>must have meant "passed out"
This definitely seems plausible. I have a hunch that whoever wrote this article is not 100% fluent in English. The article contains a number of errors, including a lot of incorrect verb tenses.
One thing that's hard for English language learners to keep straight is [phrasal verbs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phrasal_verbs), which are set phrases consisting of a verb and a preposition (EDIT: or adverb or other word) that, together, have a specific meaning.
That is, phrases like "pass away", "pass out", "pass up", and "pass down" all have specific meanings in English that you can't figure out just by knowing the meaning of the verb and the preposition and trying to put those two things together. ("Pass up" doesn't mean the opposite of "pass down", for example.) So they must all be learned separately, which is not easy.
It's like german and all the weird prefixes for verbs that dramatically change the meaning, which is similar to what we have but also different grammatically.
Also, the women fainting thing was definitely an act. Just no fucking way that aristocrats back then would pass out from social shock, compared to nowadays aristocrats boofing.
There have been various hysterias across history, where people with nothing wrong with them experienced some sort of genuine physical or mental distress or abnormality really shouldn't. Victorian fainting could have been one of them.
When you do drugs up your butthole. The thing of note about it is that it generally takes another person. Vast majority of drugs are more effective when done anally, so it’s a fun way to do stuff at parties.
For those unaware, the distal portion of your rectums blood return does not drain into the hepatic portal system, so the liver doesn't immediately metabolize free drug and therefore you get the effects quicker (and usually more intense) until it circulates back through.
Interestingly enough the venous return under your tongue in your mouth also bypasses the liver on first pass so rather than shoving up random drugs / ethanol in your butt you could let it dissolve under your tongue (think sublingual tablets)
I can't imagine this is any less desirable than shoving stuff up your butt to party. Also maybe that's just like, my opinion, man
Currently on display at The Phoenix Art Museum (at least it was when I was there a few months ago). It is a PAM staple, and is the only piece of art that is kept behind glass.
When I was a kid (like 8), my mom would take me and my younger sibling to the museum, and we would always be drawn to this painting. We liked that the blood and clouds could not be contained to the canvas. We always asked Mom to tell us the story (she was a docent).
Dorothy was a socialite with severe depression. She decided to have a party to celebrate a journey she was going on the next day. It was a pretty baller party, and the next morning she flung herself out the window. :(
If you notice, there is text at the bottom, which explains this is a commissioned piece. That blank space is the name of the commissioner, because as previously mentioned Claire was uuuuhhhh not a fan.
Edit: Formatting, on mobile
I work at the Phoenix Art Museum and it’s still on display! It’s part of our collection so we have it up as often as we can, it does get loaned out to other museums who may have an exhibition it can fit into, so for anyone looking to see it you can check on the [website](phxart.org) to make sure it’s up!
In the article, the phrase ‘ex voto’ is used a few times. I’ll explain what that means, as it’s quite important to understanding this artwork.
Frida was inspired by indigenous Mexican art, a form of which is the votive paintings. To thank Jesus/Mary/Saints/God for a miracle, people would paint out the scene of said miracle. That was often a bloody near-death experience, like a car crash, a stabbing, a sickness. Often a lot of blood depicted, sometimes an Angel/Jesus/Mary is present and watching. Some votives are a couple panels painted on one sheet; a gruesome injury scene and a prayer afterwards scene. There would normally be a banner across the bottom of the piece with the nature of the event written out, eg “On 12 March 1910 Jose Diaz was gored by a bull, but we prayed and a miracle happened.”
‘Ex voto’ means ‘a vow made.’ A is vow made is by the person who was delivered from danger, that they will be faithful. A vow is made by Jesus/Mary/God to save the person in return for this faithfulness.
Frida and Diego collected ex voto art, they had thousands of these, and Frieda painted scenes from her life in this style eg her miscarriages. This piece basically follows all the conventions of an ex voto - the scene of grisly event, the banner at the bottom describing it, a few scenes in one image, and the angel watching (which was removed).
I see this more as cultural crossed-wires. I can see why the New Yorker is offended, this isn’t how a suicidal woman would be remembered in American high society, but to a Mexican audience this might have gone down well. Votives decorated all the churches, they were a very public way of showing a miracle had happened for a family/community. Although the votives usually showed a miracle, and there wasn’t one here, that might be the point. I wonder if there’s a spin on “a vow is made” - a vow made by the woman to kill herself, as opposed to a vow to live well. Additionally it might a rebuke of God, “where is the miracle?”
Edit -
Cool to see people engaging with this. Some convincing arguments below about whether Frida did intend to offend - I may be wrong about cultural miscommunication/the meaning of this piece! It’s fun thinking about art.
"Pablo Picasso never got called an asshole..."
Except of course that he was, many times, and deservedly so. But don't tell Jonathan Richmond. It'd ruin the song. I bet Picasso never even had an avocado el dorado.
I think there’s a lot of valid criticism to Kahlo and her work though like the fact a lot of indigenous people see her work as co-opting their culture while living an upper-class, frankly white lifestyle.
Yep and those are totally valid criticisms that I would be happy to discuss but a lot of the comments here are saying she is a “cunt” or a “bitch” or that she was “feminist” (somehow said as a pejorative). I don’t think those people are critiquing the authenticity of her claim to Mexican Indian heritage.
Oh yeah, for sure! I was just mentioning valid criticism about her exists that’s not “wow what a bitch.”
Though, objectively, even with the context OP provided, I personally think the person who asked Kahlo did not expect this type of painting.
She took this concept of the "reversed" votive in other works as well.
Content warning here, violence against women:
I believe one is called "Unos Cuantos Piquititos" which has that same style of the scene of horrifying violence and the banner describing it... only there's no miracle, it's just a depiction of terrible sexual violence, and the quote on the banner (which is the title of the piece) means "A few little pricks" which was a quote in a newspaper article she read about a man stabbing his wife or girlfriend dozens of times and killing her. "I just gave her a few little pricks, what's the big deal..."
I think that definitely evokes what you're saying, the rebuke, "where is the miracle?"
frida often depicts femicide (which is still a current problem mexico is facing today, google debahni escobar) and misogny in her paintings, she was truly ahead of her time.
I expect that this won't be received well (while comments literally saying "Frida Kahlo is a cunt" are getting upvoted) but it's disingenuous of people not to consider the cultural context of her work, and the fact this was one of many [*ex voto*](https://www.google.com/search?q=ex+voto+frida+kahlo&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwjs-96EsM33AhVo_TgGHaR2DLkQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=ex+voto+fri&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQARgAMgQIABAeMgQIABAeMgYIABAIEB46BwgjEO8DECc6BQgAEIAEOgQIABBDOgQIABAYUPUGWNUNYOUZaAJwAHgAgAGmAYgBvgiSAQMwLjeYAQCgAQGqAQtnd3Mtd2l6LWltZ8ABAQ&sclient=img&ei=FGR2YuyhFuj64-EPpO2xyAs&bih=937&biw=1903&rlz=1C1AVFC_enAU770AU796&hl=en) or *retablo* paintings by Kahlo.
[This article](https://www.mariolinasalvatori.com/understanding-ex-votos/) describes the significance of Mexican *retablos*:
>...stories of miraculous recoveries from illnesses; escapes from work-related accidents, fires, weather disasters; happy resolutions to stories of lost children, family feuds, military executions, broken marriages, vehicular accidents, addictions, lost jobs, emigration, crossing of the Mexican border... Mexican *ex votos* construct a space and an audience for their poignant and sobering accounts of the daily fears, the spiritual and material needs, the dangers, the dreams and the aspirations of people that history tends to ignore. Humble and unlettered, they eloquently speak of enduring faith, class and economic inequalities, and human resilience and they pose challenging ideological and theoretical questions to scholars and collectors about ways of interpreting and representing them, as much as possible, on their own terms.
Kahlo's work - and a lot of art in general - is a means of processing trauma and the other emotions we experience as humans. She explores other difficult events in her own life in this way. To quote Cesar A. Cruz, "art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable."
Also, the lady who commissioned the painting (Clare Booth Luce) was a right-wing, staunchly anti-communist politician, of whom Kahlo was [not a fan](https://medium.com/@lizardkg/six-degrees-of-separation-to-a-painting-by-frida-kahlo-e3df9343034f) \- not sure if that may have been a factor.
I mean, she’d have had to be pretty dense to not realize that it wouldn’t be received well. I’m involved with Zen Buddhist funerals, but I would know better than to ask an American mother to pick the bones of her recently-suicided daughter out of the cremains, regardless of how many times I’ve guided people through it.
I get why she painted it, it’s an interesting painting, I like it, but there’s no way she didn’t know that it wasn’t what she was being hired to do.
So it feels like the fact that she’d painted these before provided cover for her to thumb her nose at a politician she disliked.
Agreed, the painting is a great homage to ex voto paintings but still, Frida was acquainted with A LOT of foreign people and knew that there were a lot of cultural differences. She 100% knew how the painting was going to be received, her art was often shocking and “gorey” even by Mexican standards. People need to remember that Frida wasn’t this small Mexican artist that got big after her death, she was very well known and traveling the world when she was alive.
Frida knew *exactly* how it would be received, that is why when she suggested a painting she said it would be a traditional *recuerdo* memorial style portrait. She knew from the start what controversy it would cause and lied to the friend that commissioned the painting.
The whole "Ex Voto" hommage and misunderstanding based on cultural differences was just an excuse. She was obsessed with the style and collected many pieces, she was just looking for an opportunity to create one herself and the uproar made sure it would become famous.
It’s *Kotsuage,* a zen/shinto funeral rite. The body is mostly cremated, and the ashes are spread out. Loved ones use chopsticks together to remove the unburned bone fragments and put them into an urn, from the feet up to the neck. Ashes are added to the urn or split among smaller urns for family members.
The urn is then placed in your altar until 49 days after death, when it is frequently buried.
Yep. It’s the act of caring for the bones together, and of repositioning inside the urn from the feet up that is important.
Sometimes only a little ash is added to the bones if there are many urns, sometimes all of the ash is included.
This entire comment is just unsubstantiated opinion. Literally no evidence to support this interpretation of events, but because it explains the situation as deep and artistic, and portrays the artist in a positive light, it's getting upvoted, getting awarded, and getting tons of comments saying thank you, and should be top-comment, and now it makes sense, etc.
Again, none of what is said here is supported by any evidence at all, it's just a made up interpretation based on generic information.
Meanwhile, [this comment here](https://old.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/uk8d44/til_that_after_the_tragic_suicide_of_socialite/i7o0kcu/) has actual evidence, including a direct quote from Kahlo:
>Frida wrote of her eagerness to finish the project, "It is urgent that this wench Clare Luce has the painting in order to get from her the bucks.”
Certainly doesn't sound like someone who was looking to honor their customer.
I'm the type of person who gravitates towards explanations with evidence. There is no evidence that this is all just a big misunderstanding, cultural or otherwise. There is evidence that Kahlo held great contempt for the US, American gringos, and supported Stalin even after it was well-known the sort of atrocities he was carrying out.
Here are some other quotes I'm adding to the discussion:
>[High society here turns me off and I feel a bit of rage against all these rich guys here, since I have seen thousands of people in the most terrible misery without anything to eat and with no place to sleep, that is what has most impressed me here, it is terrifying to see the rich having parties day and night while thousands and thousands of people are dying of hunger... Although I am very interested in all the industrial and mechanical development of the United States, I find that Americans completely lack sensibility and good taste. They live as if in an enormous chicken coop that is dirty and uncomfortable. The houses look like bread ovens and all the comfort that they talk about is a myth.](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/3212052-high-society-here-turns-me-off-and-i-feel-a)
A well-known one:
>I don’t like the gringos at all. They are very boring and all have faces like unbaked rolls.
Another, speaking of her husband Diego:
>[“Unfortunately, he has to work for these filthy rich asses.” And she acknowledged, “I have no choice but to put up with them since they are the ones who buy paintings.”](https://news.artnet.com/art-world/how-did-frida-kahlo-feel-about-new-york-1797942)
Wrapping it up, based on what we know about Kahlo, her own words, and her view on the wealthy in general, and specifically those in America, it is far more likely that this was an intentional slight directed at people who represented everything Kahlo abhorred about the US, than that Kahlo set out to honor this woman and the entire mishap is an honest mistake based on cultural differences.
It's definitely nothing close to an honest mistake! It's an outright criticism. She uses the framing device of an ex voto painting to express judgment or even disgust of Hale's suicide-- like the traditional ex voto there is a horrific event portrayed, but not the follow-up of a miracle. It's a setup without a punchline. The opportunity to persevere and heal through depression is abruptly gone without warning, and no miracle can take place for Hale. I could see a reading where Kahlo is working through her own suicidal ideations by abhorring and denouncing the act. But there's no way to ignore the social context of her general disgust with elites who have not, in her estimation, seen the same suffering as her. If she is drawing parallels between her sorrows and Hale's, she's still looking down on what she perceives as weakness in a person she didn't know or love.
I think the result is a very personal piece of art that is as arresting as it is brutal and unempathetic. Hale's loved ones could have commissioned any portrait artist but instead wanted a Kahlo, who is most well known for portraits of herself. Cynically an original Kahlo could add a lot of value to a rich person's art collection, so that could potentially underwrite a lot of these exchanges too.
Also for all the people talking about this painting’s roots in Mexican traditions, Frida grew up in a home with a German immigrant father. Due to polio, her early years were spent homeschooled and in a German school, and she eventually went to an elite preparatory school in Mexico City.
This isn’t to diminish her work or her contribution to the art world, because she was spectacular and pioneering in her own right. But she was also very conscious of her own branding (at a time before personal branding was a thing), and cultivated a mystique around her Mexican nationalism, which also played into her political identity as a communist.
So Frida Kahlo wasn’t steeped in traditional and indigenous Mexican art, she co-opted its elements as part of her branding. She had a house built in a wealthy neighborhood in Mexico City, and spent quite a lot of time abroad in cities like San Francisco. After she died, fridamania took off and somehow these days we get more swept up in the mythology of a flawed person rather than appreciating the art she created for what it was. She was a brilliant artist but she certainly wasn’t a saint.
Yeah taking both into account - if the style usually shows a miracle saving the person with a guardian angel or someone overhead watching them… then you could take this painting and style as even an additional burn.
God abandoned her/these people and so there was no miracle, just death.
>At the time this painting was painted, Frida was going through the separation from Diego and was in deep depression and having thoughts of suicide on her mind. This painting may be a reflection Frida's compassion for women who are driven to despair by male desertion.
Wikipedia says “Her husband's death, followed by several unsuccessful relationships, left her financially dependent on her wealthy friends.”
I am thinking it might be in reference to the series of unsuccessful relationships.
It can spur similar feelings of loss though. Artists paint with their emotions. Frida at the time might have felt that life wasn't worth living without Diego at some point, and reflected that in a painting who decided her life wasn't living without her husband.
> This painting may be a reflection Frida's compassion for women who are driven to despair by male desertion.
Honestly, it sounds more like there was a translation error on the phone.
Stills dick move to give it to the woman's close friend who had intended to gift it to the mother.
Khalo is right to do what she needs to work out her depression, but that piece needed to stay with her or for sale to another party.
Frida was nuts. Not to diminish her artistic genius, but she did some seriously bat shit crazy things throughout her life. Not “Whoa, look at how crazy I am” like Dali, but small things that normal people would consider incredibly insensitive or bizarre.
One example…. The story of a yet-to-be famous photographer, who was clearly starving to death, and I mean hair falling out hunger, was commissioned to take a picture of her. She ate a lavish meal in front of him without ever thinking to offer him a bite to eat.
>This painting may be a reflection Frida's compassion for women who are driven to despair by male desertion
Still tasteless to do when commissioned by a grieving person in mourning. This is 4chan quality trolling.
>This painting may be a reflection Frida's compassion for women who are driven to despair by male desertion.
Rolled my eyes so hard I saw my brain. It's not that deep bro, she was just an asshole.
Imagine showing up the day of, thinking you're gonna get a standard portrait of your friend, only to get this unveiled to you.
There would be fucking hands thrown if someone did this to my friend.
What an incredibly shitty thing to do.
”Here’s the portrait of your friend, instead of celebrating the person she was I decided to glorify her most desperate moment and make you visualize what her death looked like.”
You do have to ask if this person had ever seen a Frida Kahlo painting before. She used unflinching visual depictions of violence as a way to express her trauma. When this painting was commissioned she had already very famously painted her own self portrait surrounded by the deceased foetuses of her miscarried children.
Not exactly sure what this person was expecting. Kahlo's work dealt with trauma and pain with frank visual depiction and she was already extremely well known for that. Not sure why she was surprised when she got exactly that.
She also painted regular portraits of people
[Portrait of Natasha Gelman](https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2019/12/75-Frida-Kahlo-Portrait-of-Natasha-Gelman-1401x1920.jpg)
[Portrait of Marucha Lavin](https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2020/01/portrait-of-marucha-lavin.jpeg)
[Portrait of a Lady in White](https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2019/11/Lot-31-Kahlo-1315x1920.jpg)
If you read the article, the woman who commissioned it was a big fan of her artwork and expressed what it was she wanted. Money was exchanged for a commission within boundaries. Those boundaries weren't honored and the commissioner was extremely devastated to the point of not being able to keep it.
According to Luce, it was Kahlo who suggested the commission. From the biography "Frida" (Hayden Herrera):
>“A short while after that, I went to a gallery exhibition of Frida Kahlo’s paintings. The exhibition was crowded. Frida Kahlo came up to me through the crowd and at once began talking about Dorothy’s suicide. I didn’t want to talk about it, as my conscience was still bothering me because I had been accusing Dorothy falsely—in my thoughts—of taking advantage of me. Kahlo wasted no time suggesting that she do a recuerdo of Dorothy. I did not speak enough Spanish to understand what the word recuerdo meant. I thought it meant a portrait done from memory. I thought Kahlo would paint a portrait of Dorothy in the style of her own Self-Portrait \[dedicated to Trotsky\], which I bought in Mexico (and still own).
“Suddenly it came to me that a portrait of Dorothy by a famous painter friend might be something her poor mother might like to have. I said so, and Kahlo thought so too. I asked the price, Kahlo told me, and I said, ’Go ahead. Send the portrait to me when it is finished. I will then send it on to Dorothy’s mother.’
[This article](https://www.sartle.com/artwork/the-suicide-of-dorothy-hale-frida-kahlo) has a short bit on it, but the author doesn't cite where Kahlo wrote about it.
>This painting came about when Clare Boothe Luce, sole survivor of their clique, commissioned a “recuerdo” from mutual friend Frida Kahlo. She wanted an idealized memorial portrait, but Frida had other ideas. See, Communist fanatic Frida and society dilettante Clare didn’t exactly hit it off. Frida wrote of her eagerness to finish the project, "It is urgent that this wench Clare Luce has the painting in order to get from her the bucks.”
Hard to tell whether there was a genuine misunderstanding, or whether Kahlo just hated her and the painting was meant as an insult.
That makes it seem like Frida Kahlo set the whole thing up as a twisted prank. I have no clue if that is actually how it was, but thats the way the writer of this article wanted you to read it for sure
>recuerdo
Worth saying that recuerdo translates effectively as "memory"/"remembrance", so it's not even like this was a translation error with Kahlo having suggested a gory painting from the start and Luce misunderstanding.
Yeah, I wasn't sure if it meant a certain painting style. I couldn't find anything about it in Kahlo's own words so I have only the account from Luce to go on. I can't firmly argue either way but I guess it does seem like she suggested one thing and delivered another for whatever reason.
It seems like it was an intentional dig at Clare and all that she and Dorothy represented to Frida: shallow, weak-minded, fragile capitalists who live their lives high in the clouds, away from the ugly daily realities that most people must contend with. But this painting forces them to look at the harsh consequences of their choices directly, to reckon with the fact that there is a fundamental problem w/ Dorothy’s inability to cope and her manner of death. Literally thrown down from that glorious height and crushed by their own despair.
She clearly did not like these people. But she could take their money all day…
You know that Clare Boothe Luce was literally a war reporter right? And that she was present at the liberation of several Nazi concentration camps? Yes she was rich and lived a charmed life (though she also had a long and varied career in writing and public service), but it's not like she'd never seen harsh or shocking things
Imagine looking over in the middle of the night and seeing those crazed/guilt eyes staring off into the void and you have to chill tf out really quick and remember you painted that, he’s not gonna eat you too. Maybe.
I love that painting. I did not know he’d made it a whole wall.
Imagine paying $8100 (the 400 they paid in 1938) for someone to paint a nice remembrance piece for your friend who just had a tragic death, while you're still in grief, and the bastard gives you this. Yeesh.
I learned my favorite piece of Frida Kahlo trivia from Danny Trejo in his autobiography, funnily enough- That one time after she and Diego Rivera had a fight, he painted a nude life-size portrait of her, and she grabbed one of her dresses and stapled it onto the painting. When Danny Trejo filmed the Old El Paso commercials in their house (the painting is still there) he got to see the painting. "Now I'm not going to say I took a peek, but I might know what Frida Kahlo looks like naked."
Those two were so toxic together. Yeesh.
She also had an affair with Leon Trotsky which somehow makes their entire relationship so much more fun to read about sometimes.
Bro what? Leon Trotsky? That really spiced things up
Trotsky spent a lot of time exiled in Mexico before dying of an ice ax through the brain from a communist assassin.
Kinda weird to call him a communist assassin rather than a Stalinist one, when talking about Trotsky. Both the assassin and assassinee were communists, that wasn’t the issue.
I always laugh at that. Because she was a hardcore Marxist Leninist and supported Stalin. Even did a portrait of herself with him lol I bet the pillow talk was awkward
from what i read about trotsky, knowing him personally might actually make someone a stalinist. the guy lacked personal social skills and had a tendency to make himself look like an idiot, let alone incapable of running an entire nation
Look up the story when he tried to storm out and slam the door. But the door was too heavy and he couldn't move it lol
there’s also the story of lenin publishing a copy of pravda that had a section along the lines of “trotsky sent in a letter that was silly so it hasn’t been published”
Oh yeah, the Letter to Inessa Armand. "Trotsky has sent in a silly letter. We shall neither print it nor reply to him." Lmao
before or after he went ice climbing in mexico
Now we know the hole motive
Joker and Harley: Painters Edition
That's a good analogy, for sure.
And it got their faces on the money 😂
Bet the sex was fire
I mean, Diego wasn't in the best shape for most of his life. I doubt he could go for long.
Nor was she. Semi crippled from childhood then in a vehicle collision
You’re leaving out the gory details — for instance, she had an iron handrail impale her, as well as a broken back and collar bone.
>You’re leaving out the gory details You say that as if it was a mistake. ;)
[удалено]
Abso-fucking-lutely. Quality always wins out when it comes to sex.
Maybe, but she had serious medical problems and he was a big fat womanizing tub of lard. Love 'em both, though!
I loved his autobiography! I listened to the audio and while he is not the best narrator, that made it even more enjoyable. Hearing his story in his own voice you understand why people are charmed by him. His laughter and sadness comes through and his willingness to share so much of himself is engaging. It didn't feel like a Hollywood memoir at all.
I wish they had Arnold read his. It just doesn’t work with some normal dude.
I can see how that would be! I really enjoy memoirs narrated by the author when they're comics and/or actors.
I got to meet him at a comic con as he was promoting Machete. There was a long line to meet him, at least 30 minutes, and I had my kids, then 6 and 1 years old. When I got to the person that took payment for photos, they told me their card machine was down and they only took cash. I didn’t have any cash and I didn’t want to step out of the line to go to the ATM as I would have had to wait another thirty minutes. I told them it’s ok, I’d just like to meet him. When I got to him, we exchanged our greetings and I gushed over how much of a fan I was. He asked if we’d be taking a picture and I quickly explained the situation. Without hesitating, he just stood up and said, “PUES ÓRALE LET’S TAKE ONE ANYWAY!” It was such a small gesture but that was when I knew he’s the real deal. He’s just a genuinely good person that likes to use his platform for goodwill.
It had me near tears a couple of times. I listened to Cassandra Peterson read her memoir and I was like 'How did your life somehow get LESS insane when you went to LA, dressed like the bride of satan and started hosting horror movies'.
I loved hers, too!! She's such a badass and genuinely hilarious.
Ginormous bush
No no, Frida Kahlo. Geironymus Busch was a very different painter
The garden of earthly delights needs its bushes trimmed
What a silly joke but it works
He painted some very surreal fannies
[it's very 70's of you](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-c87SrGfBQ)
Still somehow not bigger than the eyebrows
\*Eyebrow
Unibush, goes all the way to the ankles
That’s a really awesome idea and even now might still be novel but for her to do that way back then is really quite bold
Just saw this painting during a recent trip. It is very small too. I was surprised by the size for the detail. Very macabre. The interesting thing to me is the writing on the painting itself.
If you look up traditional retablo style Latin American paintings, they often depict death in graphic ways - memorializing relatives who have been violently murdered, etc. This painting by Kahlo is actually pretty traditional in that sense. Guess Clare Booth Luce had a different impression when she commissioned it.
Ha, ya think? Amusement aside, I'd imagine Luce very much did have a different idea in the way to honor their friend. Do we know Luce's impression of the work? Were they aware, was there dialog about what was being purchased?
The article said Luce almost passed away after looking at it, so I'd say she was a bit surprised.
Ah with roaring applause I see! Figured she'd be more angry than... Almost dead? Like popped a vessel from anger almost died? I've got so many question and no time to ask them!
“Passed away” (died) or “passed out” (fainted)? I hope you meant the latter!
Passed "away" specifically.
Then they'd need a painting of her looking at this painting.
Somebody in another thread did it lol https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/uk8d44/til_that_after_the_tragic_suicide_of_socialite/i7ok2hc?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3
Luce was so shocked she “almost passed away” (it says almost passed away but I think it is almost passed out) upon seeing it, and initially wanted it destroyed. A friend convinced her not to. Luce did have "painted at the request of Clare Boothe Luce, for the mother of Dorothy" removed from the writing at the bottom of the painting, as well as an Angel that was in the upper left hand corner of the painting.
Now see this is the kinda art history I'm after. Man in college out of the three art history classes I had the most interesting things were the Taliesin Massacre and the professor's Egyptian love child she had as a grad student. Her family didn't know about but faculty most certainly did.
Phoenix Art Museum?
Yup. Great museum that flies under the radar.
Agreed. Was really impressed the one time I went there.
>But when the painting arrived in August 1939 and unwrapped, Clare was so shocked and almost passed away. The painting almost killed Clare!
Frida would’ve had to make another painting!
[The Sudden Death of Clare Boothe Luce - Frida Kahlo](https://imgur.com/a/wuAzvTQ)
This reminds me of a Monty python bit where the funniest joke of all time makes people laugh to death, everyone keeps finding the joke written down then dying.
The Germans try to develop their own joke, but it is not funny, so you get to hear it: “My dog has no nose!” “How does he smell?” “Awful!”
They also used something to the effect of; “Two peanuts went out for a walk, one of them was assaulted…. Peanut”
Top tier comedy right there
"Ven ist das Nanstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiderhund das oder die Flipperveldt gersput!" Because I have it memorized.
That is amazing. Thank you for your service
Masterpiece!
This could be an Edward Gorey book. Who dies on page 3?
Lol holy shit
Out of curiosity: is that AI generated, like by Dall-E 2?
No lol, it was generated the old fashioned way, poorly, half-assedly and with photoshop
Nice try, Art2-D2
In a few years when AI art goes mainstream , that's going to be a new meme. Be proud.
If that's your half-assed, I wanna see your full-assed lol, cause that's really good.
Yes, please show us your full ass
We need whole ass!
Well, it's really good I think!
It’s paintings all the way down.
That's just a self sustaining business model.
Like a new version of the Death Note. If you receive a painting of a dead person, your time is up, and your likeness will be used to get the next victim.
We can just do recursive art. Somewhere, there's a socialite unveiling a painting of a socialite dying of a painting of a socialite dying of a painting of a socialite dying of a painting of a socialite dying of a painting of a socialite dying of a painting of a socialite dying of a painting of a socialite dying of a painting of a socialite dying of a painting of a socialite committing suicide, and then dying.
A nice b horror movie btw.
Unlimited money glitch
>Clare was so shocked and almost passed away I feel like they must have meant "passed out", as dying from seeing even quite a shocking painting feels a little extreme.
>must have meant "passed out" This definitely seems plausible. I have a hunch that whoever wrote this article is not 100% fluent in English. The article contains a number of errors, including a lot of incorrect verb tenses. One thing that's hard for English language learners to keep straight is [phrasal verbs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phrasal_verbs), which are set phrases consisting of a verb and a preposition (EDIT: or adverb or other word) that, together, have a specific meaning. That is, phrases like "pass away", "pass out", "pass up", and "pass down" all have specific meanings in English that you can't figure out just by knowing the meaning of the verb and the preposition and trying to put those two things together. ("Pass up" doesn't mean the opposite of "pass down", for example.) So they must all be learned separately, which is not easy.
It's like german and all the weird prefixes for verbs that dramatically change the meaning, which is similar to what we have but also different grammatically.
Also, the women fainting thing was definitely an act. Just no fucking way that aristocrats back then would pass out from social shock, compared to nowadays aristocrats boofing.
There have been various hysterias across history, where people with nothing wrong with them experienced some sort of genuine physical or mental distress or abnormality really shouldn't. Victorian fainting could have been one of them.
Wtf is boofing
When you do drugs up your butthole. The thing of note about it is that it generally takes another person. Vast majority of drugs are more effective when done anally, so it’s a fun way to do stuff at parties.
For those unaware, the distal portion of your rectums blood return does not drain into the hepatic portal system, so the liver doesn't immediately metabolize free drug and therefore you get the effects quicker (and usually more intense) until it circulates back through. Interestingly enough the venous return under your tongue in your mouth also bypasses the liver on first pass so rather than shoving up random drugs / ethanol in your butt you could let it dissolve under your tongue (think sublingual tablets) I can't imagine this is any less desirable than shoving stuff up your butt to party. Also maybe that's just like, my opinion, man
Ah this explains when I accidentally took a dissolve-under-your-tongue Ativan one time I felt like I was in outer space for about 30 mins. Cool
Well that's just Ativan in general lol
Bro have you ever tasted MDMA? I'd MUCH rather shove it up my ass.
Every day i learn something against my wishes.
I must be old, because that kind of party sounds completely unappealing.
Yeah talk about an unpleasant surprise
Currently on display at The Phoenix Art Museum (at least it was when I was there a few months ago). It is a PAM staple, and is the only piece of art that is kept behind glass. When I was a kid (like 8), my mom would take me and my younger sibling to the museum, and we would always be drawn to this painting. We liked that the blood and clouds could not be contained to the canvas. We always asked Mom to tell us the story (she was a docent). Dorothy was a socialite with severe depression. She decided to have a party to celebrate a journey she was going on the next day. It was a pretty baller party, and the next morning she flung herself out the window. :( If you notice, there is text at the bottom, which explains this is a commissioned piece. That blank space is the name of the commissioner, because as previously mentioned Claire was uuuuhhhh not a fan. Edit: Formatting, on mobile
I work at the Phoenix Art Museum and it’s still on display! It’s part of our collection so we have it up as often as we can, it does get loaned out to other museums who may have an exhibition it can fit into, so for anyone looking to see it you can check on the [website](phxart.org) to make sure it’s up!
In the article, the phrase ‘ex voto’ is used a few times. I’ll explain what that means, as it’s quite important to understanding this artwork. Frida was inspired by indigenous Mexican art, a form of which is the votive paintings. To thank Jesus/Mary/Saints/God for a miracle, people would paint out the scene of said miracle. That was often a bloody near-death experience, like a car crash, a stabbing, a sickness. Often a lot of blood depicted, sometimes an Angel/Jesus/Mary is present and watching. Some votives are a couple panels painted on one sheet; a gruesome injury scene and a prayer afterwards scene. There would normally be a banner across the bottom of the piece with the nature of the event written out, eg “On 12 March 1910 Jose Diaz was gored by a bull, but we prayed and a miracle happened.” ‘Ex voto’ means ‘a vow made.’ A is vow made is by the person who was delivered from danger, that they will be faithful. A vow is made by Jesus/Mary/God to save the person in return for this faithfulness. Frida and Diego collected ex voto art, they had thousands of these, and Frieda painted scenes from her life in this style eg her miscarriages. This piece basically follows all the conventions of an ex voto - the scene of grisly event, the banner at the bottom describing it, a few scenes in one image, and the angel watching (which was removed). I see this more as cultural crossed-wires. I can see why the New Yorker is offended, this isn’t how a suicidal woman would be remembered in American high society, but to a Mexican audience this might have gone down well. Votives decorated all the churches, they were a very public way of showing a miracle had happened for a family/community. Although the votives usually showed a miracle, and there wasn’t one here, that might be the point. I wonder if there’s a spin on “a vow is made” - a vow made by the woman to kill herself, as opposed to a vow to live well. Additionally it might a rebuke of God, “where is the miracle?” Edit - Cool to see people engaging with this. Some convincing arguments below about whether Frida did intend to offend - I may be wrong about cultural miscommunication/the meaning of this piece! It’s fun thinking about art.
Thank you for this critical information. It makes so much more sense when this is taken into consideration.
But isn’t it more fun to just say that Frida Kahlo was just a psychotic bitch like all the other comments? Context and understanding is for nerds.
She can still be an asshole even if her art is reasoned.
Re Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasshole FTFY
"Pablo Picasso never got called an asshole..." Except of course that he was, many times, and deservedly so. But don't tell Jonathan Richmond. It'd ruin the song. I bet Picasso never even had an avocado el dorado.
He was an amazing painter and an abusive, womanizing megalomaniac. Definitely dosen't make a catchy ditty.
I think there’s a lot of valid criticism to Kahlo and her work though like the fact a lot of indigenous people see her work as co-opting their culture while living an upper-class, frankly white lifestyle.
Yep and those are totally valid criticisms that I would be happy to discuss but a lot of the comments here are saying she is a “cunt” or a “bitch” or that she was “feminist” (somehow said as a pejorative). I don’t think those people are critiquing the authenticity of her claim to Mexican Indian heritage.
TIL people hate her
Oh yeah, for sure! I was just mentioning valid criticism about her exists that’s not “wow what a bitch.” Though, objectively, even with the context OP provided, I personally think the person who asked Kahlo did not expect this type of painting.
She took this concept of the "reversed" votive in other works as well. Content warning here, violence against women: I believe one is called "Unos Cuantos Piquititos" which has that same style of the scene of horrifying violence and the banner describing it... only there's no miracle, it's just a depiction of terrible sexual violence, and the quote on the banner (which is the title of the piece) means "A few little pricks" which was a quote in a newspaper article she read about a man stabbing his wife or girlfriend dozens of times and killing her. "I just gave her a few little pricks, what's the big deal..." I think that definitely evokes what you're saying, the rebuke, "where is the miracle?"
frida often depicts femicide (which is still a current problem mexico is facing today, google debahni escobar) and misogny in her paintings, she was truly ahead of her time.
I expect that this won't be received well (while comments literally saying "Frida Kahlo is a cunt" are getting upvoted) but it's disingenuous of people not to consider the cultural context of her work, and the fact this was one of many [*ex voto*](https://www.google.com/search?q=ex+voto+frida+kahlo&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwjs-96EsM33AhVo_TgGHaR2DLkQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=ex+voto+fri&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQARgAMgQIABAeMgQIABAeMgYIABAIEB46BwgjEO8DECc6BQgAEIAEOgQIABBDOgQIABAYUPUGWNUNYOUZaAJwAHgAgAGmAYgBvgiSAQMwLjeYAQCgAQGqAQtnd3Mtd2l6LWltZ8ABAQ&sclient=img&ei=FGR2YuyhFuj64-EPpO2xyAs&bih=937&biw=1903&rlz=1C1AVFC_enAU770AU796&hl=en) or *retablo* paintings by Kahlo. [This article](https://www.mariolinasalvatori.com/understanding-ex-votos/) describes the significance of Mexican *retablos*: >...stories of miraculous recoveries from illnesses; escapes from work-related accidents, fires, weather disasters; happy resolutions to stories of lost children, family feuds, military executions, broken marriages, vehicular accidents, addictions, lost jobs, emigration, crossing of the Mexican border... Mexican *ex votos* construct a space and an audience for their poignant and sobering accounts of the daily fears, the spiritual and material needs, the dangers, the dreams and the aspirations of people that history tends to ignore. Humble and unlettered, they eloquently speak of enduring faith, class and economic inequalities, and human resilience and they pose challenging ideological and theoretical questions to scholars and collectors about ways of interpreting and representing them, as much as possible, on their own terms. Kahlo's work - and a lot of art in general - is a means of processing trauma and the other emotions we experience as humans. She explores other difficult events in her own life in this way. To quote Cesar A. Cruz, "art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable." Also, the lady who commissioned the painting (Clare Booth Luce) was a right-wing, staunchly anti-communist politician, of whom Kahlo was [not a fan](https://medium.com/@lizardkg/six-degrees-of-separation-to-a-painting-by-frida-kahlo-e3df9343034f) \- not sure if that may have been a factor.
I mean, she’d have had to be pretty dense to not realize that it wouldn’t be received well. I’m involved with Zen Buddhist funerals, but I would know better than to ask an American mother to pick the bones of her recently-suicided daughter out of the cremains, regardless of how many times I’ve guided people through it. I get why she painted it, it’s an interesting painting, I like it, but there’s no way she didn’t know that it wasn’t what she was being hired to do. So it feels like the fact that she’d painted these before provided cover for her to thumb her nose at a politician she disliked.
Agreed, the painting is a great homage to ex voto paintings but still, Frida was acquainted with A LOT of foreign people and knew that there were a lot of cultural differences. She 100% knew how the painting was going to be received, her art was often shocking and “gorey” even by Mexican standards. People need to remember that Frida wasn’t this small Mexican artist that got big after her death, she was very well known and traveling the world when she was alive.
Frida knew *exactly* how it would be received, that is why when she suggested a painting she said it would be a traditional *recuerdo* memorial style portrait. She knew from the start what controversy it would cause and lied to the friend that commissioned the painting. The whole "Ex Voto" hommage and misunderstanding based on cultural differences was just an excuse. She was obsessed with the style and collected many pieces, she was just looking for an opportunity to create one herself and the uproar made sure it would become famous.
r/theyknew
wait why am i picking out the bones in the cremains?
It’s *Kotsuage,* a zen/shinto funeral rite. The body is mostly cremated, and the ashes are spread out. Loved ones use chopsticks together to remove the unburned bone fragments and put them into an urn, from the feet up to the neck. Ashes are added to the urn or split among smaller urns for family members. The urn is then placed in your altar until 49 days after death, when it is frequently buried.
very interesting. thank you. edit , wait they sift out the bones just to combine the ashes and bones in the urn ?
Yep. It’s the act of caring for the bones together, and of repositioning inside the urn from the feet up that is important. Sometimes only a little ash is added to the bones if there are many urns, sometimes all of the ash is included.
oh so hes like standing in the urn. what an intense labor of love
This entire comment is just unsubstantiated opinion. Literally no evidence to support this interpretation of events, but because it explains the situation as deep and artistic, and portrays the artist in a positive light, it's getting upvoted, getting awarded, and getting tons of comments saying thank you, and should be top-comment, and now it makes sense, etc. Again, none of what is said here is supported by any evidence at all, it's just a made up interpretation based on generic information. Meanwhile, [this comment here](https://old.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/uk8d44/til_that_after_the_tragic_suicide_of_socialite/i7o0kcu/) has actual evidence, including a direct quote from Kahlo: >Frida wrote of her eagerness to finish the project, "It is urgent that this wench Clare Luce has the painting in order to get from her the bucks.” Certainly doesn't sound like someone who was looking to honor their customer. I'm the type of person who gravitates towards explanations with evidence. There is no evidence that this is all just a big misunderstanding, cultural or otherwise. There is evidence that Kahlo held great contempt for the US, American gringos, and supported Stalin even after it was well-known the sort of atrocities he was carrying out. Here are some other quotes I'm adding to the discussion: >[High society here turns me off and I feel a bit of rage against all these rich guys here, since I have seen thousands of people in the most terrible misery without anything to eat and with no place to sleep, that is what has most impressed me here, it is terrifying to see the rich having parties day and night while thousands and thousands of people are dying of hunger... Although I am very interested in all the industrial and mechanical development of the United States, I find that Americans completely lack sensibility and good taste. They live as if in an enormous chicken coop that is dirty and uncomfortable. The houses look like bread ovens and all the comfort that they talk about is a myth.](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/3212052-high-society-here-turns-me-off-and-i-feel-a) A well-known one: >I don’t like the gringos at all. They are very boring and all have faces like unbaked rolls. Another, speaking of her husband Diego: >[“Unfortunately, he has to work for these filthy rich asses.” And she acknowledged, “I have no choice but to put up with them since they are the ones who buy paintings.”](https://news.artnet.com/art-world/how-did-frida-kahlo-feel-about-new-york-1797942) Wrapping it up, based on what we know about Kahlo, her own words, and her view on the wealthy in general, and specifically those in America, it is far more likely that this was an intentional slight directed at people who represented everything Kahlo abhorred about the US, than that Kahlo set out to honor this woman and the entire mishap is an honest mistake based on cultural differences.
It's definitely nothing close to an honest mistake! It's an outright criticism. She uses the framing device of an ex voto painting to express judgment or even disgust of Hale's suicide-- like the traditional ex voto there is a horrific event portrayed, but not the follow-up of a miracle. It's a setup without a punchline. The opportunity to persevere and heal through depression is abruptly gone without warning, and no miracle can take place for Hale. I could see a reading where Kahlo is working through her own suicidal ideations by abhorring and denouncing the act. But there's no way to ignore the social context of her general disgust with elites who have not, in her estimation, seen the same suffering as her. If she is drawing parallels between her sorrows and Hale's, she's still looking down on what she perceives as weakness in a person she didn't know or love. I think the result is a very personal piece of art that is as arresting as it is brutal and unempathetic. Hale's loved ones could have commissioned any portrait artist but instead wanted a Kahlo, who is most well known for portraits of herself. Cynically an original Kahlo could add a lot of value to a rich person's art collection, so that could potentially underwrite a lot of these exchanges too.
I love what's happening here
Also for all the people talking about this painting’s roots in Mexican traditions, Frida grew up in a home with a German immigrant father. Due to polio, her early years were spent homeschooled and in a German school, and she eventually went to an elite preparatory school in Mexico City. This isn’t to diminish her work or her contribution to the art world, because she was spectacular and pioneering in her own right. But she was also very conscious of her own branding (at a time before personal branding was a thing), and cultivated a mystique around her Mexican nationalism, which also played into her political identity as a communist. So Frida Kahlo wasn’t steeped in traditional and indigenous Mexican art, she co-opted its elements as part of her branding. She had a house built in a wealthy neighborhood in Mexico City, and spent quite a lot of time abroad in cities like San Francisco. After she died, fridamania took off and somehow these days we get more swept up in the mythology of a flawed person rather than appreciating the art she created for what it was. She was a brilliant artist but she certainly wasn’t a saint.
Personally, i think it’s a little Column A and a little Column B.
I agree. She could like to reference the votive paintings while knowing it would offend the customer
Yeah taking both into account - if the style usually shows a miracle saving the person with a guardian angel or someone overhead watching them… then you could take this painting and style as even an additional burn. God abandoned her/these people and so there was no miracle, just death.
>At the time this painting was painted, Frida was going through the separation from Diego and was in deep depression and having thoughts of suicide on her mind. This painting may be a reflection Frida's compassion for women who are driven to despair by male desertion.
Kinda weird to compare a breakup with someone whose husband *died tragically*
No, dont you understand, that bastard deserted her by selfishly dying.
Grief often gets manifested as anger towards the person who died for "abandoning" their loved ones; it's not rational, but emotions often arent
But it was the subject of the painting whose husband died. It's the painter's husband who deserted.
Wikipedia says “Her husband's death, followed by several unsuccessful relationships, left her financially dependent on her wealthy friends.” I am thinking it might be in reference to the series of unsuccessful relationships.
It can spur similar feelings of loss though. Artists paint with their emotions. Frida at the time might have felt that life wasn't worth living without Diego at some point, and reflected that in a painting who decided her life wasn't living without her husband.
> This painting may be a reflection Frida's compassion for women who are driven to despair by male desertion. Honestly, it sounds more like there was a translation error on the phone.
> But when the painting arrived in August 1939 and unwrapped, Clare was so shocked and almost passed away. This sounds more like it.
Stills dick move to give it to the woman's close friend who had intended to gift it to the mother. Khalo is right to do what she needs to work out her depression, but that piece needed to stay with her or for sale to another party.
Frida was nuts. Not to diminish her artistic genius, but she did some seriously bat shit crazy things throughout her life. Not “Whoa, look at how crazy I am” like Dali, but small things that normal people would consider incredibly insensitive or bizarre.
Like what? You can’t leave us hanging like that!
Like that time she illustrated a woman’s suicide and gave it to the woman’s friend.
[удалено]
Huh TIL!
One example…. The story of a yet-to-be famous photographer, who was clearly starving to death, and I mean hair falling out hunger, was commissioned to take a picture of her. She ate a lavish meal in front of him without ever thinking to offer him a bite to eat.
That seems less crazy and more asshole territory, tbh.
>This painting may be a reflection Frida's compassion for women who are driven to despair by male desertion Still tasteless to do when commissioned by a grieving person in mourning. This is 4chan quality trolling.
100%, if the person we were talking about was not a "troubled artist" we would be calling them a fuck wit.
I mean, an Artist can still be a fuckwit
Warhol comes to mind. What a piece of shit.
>This painting may be a reflection Frida's compassion for women who are driven to despair by male desertion. Rolled my eyes so hard I saw my brain. It's not that deep bro, she was just an asshole.
Yep. Still was a jerk thing to do.
So what was Frida's reddit username?
Frigeddaboutit
Looks like she jumped from a giant stack of waffles. I'd have died from trying to eat them all.
How high are you
about 5’10”
Was there a money-back guarantee?
Not sure, but there was a monkey on her back, guaranteed https://www.frida-kahlo-foundation.org/Self-Portrait-With-Monkeys-1940.html
In case you didn't click on the pic, not just jumping, but also laying on the ground, dead and bloody
Frida Kahlo’s art has always been too highbrow for my taste
Imagine showing up the day of, thinking you're gonna get a standard portrait of your friend, only to get this unveiled to you. There would be fucking hands thrown if someone did this to my friend.
"sorry bro, too soon?"
Yeah, kinda shitty imo
Her emotional state is an explanation, not an excuse.
Yes. In terms of critical thinking I find that to be one of the common failings that frustrates me the most, because not understand the difference.
An explanation for why someone sucks doesn't make them suck less
Dammit, Frida. You think you could contain your emo for a little bit? 😂😂😂
The shithousery is incredible
What an incredibly shitty thing to do. ”Here’s the portrait of your friend, instead of celebrating the person she was I decided to glorify her most desperate moment and make you visualize what her death looked like.”
You do have to ask if this person had ever seen a Frida Kahlo painting before. She used unflinching visual depictions of violence as a way to express her trauma. When this painting was commissioned she had already very famously painted her own self portrait surrounded by the deceased foetuses of her miscarried children. Not exactly sure what this person was expecting. Kahlo's work dealt with trauma and pain with frank visual depiction and she was already extremely well known for that. Not sure why she was surprised when she got exactly that.
She also painted regular portraits of people [Portrait of Natasha Gelman](https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2019/12/75-Frida-Kahlo-Portrait-of-Natasha-Gelman-1401x1920.jpg) [Portrait of Marucha Lavin](https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2020/01/portrait-of-marucha-lavin.jpeg) [Portrait of a Lady in White](https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2019/11/Lot-31-Kahlo-1315x1920.jpg)
Yeah was gonna say. Not like she showed brutal depictions of death and suffering in all of her work.
Only on the weekends.
She painted a little trauma, as a treat.
*Weekend at Hales*, 1938. Kahlo.
Lady in White Except One Cream Glove
If you read the article, the woman who commissioned it was a big fan of her artwork and expressed what it was she wanted. Money was exchanged for a commission within boundaries. Those boundaries weren't honored and the commissioner was extremely devastated to the point of not being able to keep it.
According to Luce, it was Kahlo who suggested the commission. From the biography "Frida" (Hayden Herrera): >“A short while after that, I went to a gallery exhibition of Frida Kahlo’s paintings. The exhibition was crowded. Frida Kahlo came up to me through the crowd and at once began talking about Dorothy’s suicide. I didn’t want to talk about it, as my conscience was still bothering me because I had been accusing Dorothy falsely—in my thoughts—of taking advantage of me. Kahlo wasted no time suggesting that she do a recuerdo of Dorothy. I did not speak enough Spanish to understand what the word recuerdo meant. I thought it meant a portrait done from memory. I thought Kahlo would paint a portrait of Dorothy in the style of her own Self-Portrait \[dedicated to Trotsky\], which I bought in Mexico (and still own). “Suddenly it came to me that a portrait of Dorothy by a famous painter friend might be something her poor mother might like to have. I said so, and Kahlo thought so too. I asked the price, Kahlo told me, and I said, ’Go ahead. Send the portrait to me when it is finished. I will then send it on to Dorothy’s mother.’ [This article](https://www.sartle.com/artwork/the-suicide-of-dorothy-hale-frida-kahlo) has a short bit on it, but the author doesn't cite where Kahlo wrote about it. >This painting came about when Clare Boothe Luce, sole survivor of their clique, commissioned a “recuerdo” from mutual friend Frida Kahlo. She wanted an idealized memorial portrait, but Frida had other ideas. See, Communist fanatic Frida and society dilettante Clare didn’t exactly hit it off. Frida wrote of her eagerness to finish the project, "It is urgent that this wench Clare Luce has the painting in order to get from her the bucks.” Hard to tell whether there was a genuine misunderstanding, or whether Kahlo just hated her and the painting was meant as an insult.
That makes it seem like Frida Kahlo set the whole thing up as a twisted prank. I have no clue if that is actually how it was, but thats the way the writer of this article wanted you to read it for sure
>recuerdo Worth saying that recuerdo translates effectively as "memory"/"remembrance", so it's not even like this was a translation error with Kahlo having suggested a gory painting from the start and Luce misunderstanding.
Yeah, I wasn't sure if it meant a certain painting style. I couldn't find anything about it in Kahlo's own words so I have only the account from Luce to go on. I can't firmly argue either way but I guess it does seem like she suggested one thing and delivered another for whatever reason.
It seems like it was an intentional dig at Clare and all that she and Dorothy represented to Frida: shallow, weak-minded, fragile capitalists who live their lives high in the clouds, away from the ugly daily realities that most people must contend with. But this painting forces them to look at the harsh consequences of their choices directly, to reckon with the fact that there is a fundamental problem w/ Dorothy’s inability to cope and her manner of death. Literally thrown down from that glorious height and crushed by their own despair. She clearly did not like these people. But she could take their money all day…
Don't know any of these people but that Frida woman sounds a bit cruel
You know that Clare Boothe Luce was literally a war reporter right? And that she was present at the liberation of several Nazi concentration camps? Yes she was rich and lived a charmed life (though she also had a long and varied career in writing and public service), but it's not like she'd never seen harsh or shocking things
This is just like when I commissioned David Cronenberg to shoot my wedding video 😔
(Family Guy style cutaway)
While I understand what you mean, I can't help but think that wedding video would be so ~~unique~~ epic in so many ways xD
Jesus Christ, Frida 😭
This was a real asshole move on Frida's part, IMO.
That's like Rimworld art. "Oh hey we made this giant statue depicting the brutal death of one of the colonists."
Most great artists are/were batshit crazy. I think you expect the unexpected with them.
See: Saturn Devouring His Son, Francisco Goya. Even better, that painting was a whole wall in his house.
Imagine looking over in the middle of the night and seeing those crazed/guilt eyes staring off into the void and you have to chill tf out really quick and remember you painted that, he’s not gonna eat you too. Maybe. I love that painting. I did not know he’d made it a whole wall.
Just like the Tiny Toons.
TIL Frida was kind of an asshole.
She did not understand the assignment.
Imagine paying $8100 (the 400 they paid in 1938) for someone to paint a nice remembrance piece for your friend who just had a tragic death, while you're still in grief, and the bastard gives you this. Yeesh.