In addition to belonging to the post-revolutionary Mexicayotl movement, which sought to define a Mexican identity, Kahlo has been described as a surrealist or magical realist. Although she was disabled by polio as a child, Kahlo had been a promising student headed for medical school until being injured in a bus accident at the age of 18, which caused her lifelong pain and medical problems.
During her recovery, she returned to her childhood interest in art with the idea of becoming an artist. Kahlo's interests in politics and art led her to join the Mexican Communist Party in , [ 1 ] through which she met fellow Mexican artist Diego Rivera. The couple married in [ 1 ] [ 6 ] and spent the late s and early s travelling in Mexico and the United States together.
During this time, she developed her artistic style, drawing her main inspiration from Mexican folk culture , and painted mostly small self-portraits that mixed elements from pre-Columbian and Catholic beliefs. While the French exhibition was less successful, the Louvre purchased a painting from Kahlo, The Frame , making her the first Mexican artist to be featured in their collection. Kahlo's always-fragile health began to decline in the same decade.
While she had had solo exhibitions elsewhere, she had her first solo exhibition in Mexico in , shortly before her death in at the age of Kahlo's work as an artist remained relatively unknown until the late s, when her work was rediscovered by art historians and political activists. Kahlo's work has been celebrated internationally as emblematic of Mexican national and Indigenous traditions and by feminists for what is seen as its uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form.
A severe bus accident at the age of 18 left Kahlo in lifelong pain. Confined to bed for three months following the accident, Kahlo began to paint. Her mother provided her with a specially-made easel , which enabled her to paint in bed, and her father lent her some of his oil paints. She had a mirror placed above the easel, so that she could see herself. Most of the paintings Kahlo made during this time were portraits of herself, her sisters, and her schoolfriends. Pflueger , and Nickolas Muray.
