image credit: Jeanne Menjoulet via Flickr
Whaddya know, it's Frida Kahlo's birthday! Born July 6, 1907, she'd be 110!
Things you might not know about our girl, Frida:
- Her birth name was Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderon.
- Her father Guillermo Kahlo (1872-1941), was born Carl Wilhelm Kahlo, in Pforzheim, Germany. He changed his surname when he arrived in Mexico in 1891. He was an artist AND his father was a painter. (Runs in the family?)
- She had polio as a child, leaving her right leg thinner than her left. The reason she often wore long skirts.
- She would often tell people that she was born in 1910 because she wanted her birth to be associated with the Mexican Revolution. (Can you blame her?)
- She originally studied medicine. (Dr. Frida Kahlo? Yeeeah.)
- She had affairs with Leon Trotsky AND Josephine Baker. (Yep. Bisexual.)
- She was the first female painter to be in the Louvre.
- Frida approached Diego Rivera to ask him for advice on pursing art as a career. (Looks like that worked out.)
- The last words she wrote: “I joyfully await the exit — and I hope never to return — Frida” (“Espero alegre la salida — y espero no volver jamás”).
And here's a super awesome way to celebrate our favorite feminist (well, one of them). Put her beautiful face on a pillow!
You can buy an entire kit from Jenny Hart at Sublime Stitching.
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