Rumors and gossip

In unit 5 we will talk about rumors and gossip, but first we will learn about a controversial and important female painter: Frida Kahlo.

“I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best.”

Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón, better known as Frida Kahlo, was born in July 6th, 1907. She was a painter, who is best known for her self-portraits. Her father, the photographer Guillermo Kahlo, was from Germany; and her mother was Matilde Calderon.

Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Humming-bird (1940)

She contracted polio at age six (her right leg was thinner than her left leg). Some people said that she was born with spina bifida (a congenital condition that could have affected both spinal and leg development). When she was 18 years old, she was in a bus accident and suffered terrible injuries: broken spinal column, broken collarbone, broken ribs, a broken pelvis, eleven fractures in her right leg, a crushed and dislocated right foot, and a dislocated shoulder. She spent 3 months in bed and started to paint for distraction.

The accident left her with chronic pain and suffered surgeries during her whole life. Also, she couldn’t have children because of her health problems. She used her physical and psychological pain as a recurrent theme in her work. She painted approximately 140 paintings, 55 of them were self-portraits. She insisted, “I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.”

She married Diego Rivera in 1929, but her marriage had a lot of troubles. Diego had a lot of extramarital affairs and Frida too (with women and men), but she was furious when Rivera cheated on her with her sister, Cristina. They divorced in 1939 and remarried in 1940.

She died on July 13, 1954. The cause of her death was pulmonary embolism, but some suspected that she died from an overdose, that may or may not have been accidental. Before she died, she wrote in her diary: “I hope the exit is joyful — and I hope never to return — Frida”.

Now we will go to our class and we will learn how to report what other people said.