The Art of Frida Kahlo - A Psychoanalytic Interpretation

THE ART OF FRIDA KAHLO –
A PSYCHOANALYTIC INTERPRETATION

The art of Frida Kahlo has been discussed at length by many art historians over the past twenty years since the publication of her biography by Hayden Herrera and the Frida Kahlo and Tina Modotti Exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1982. Many journalists and authors reinforced the construction of Kahlo as a victim, and a psychoanalytical reflection of her persona and her work necessitates probing common feminine experiences which in Kahlo’s case have been construed as suffering. David Lomas comments “the deluge of unabashedly lachrymose stories of her life and art lend support to the view that biography is a mode of trivialising art produced by women.” However, I am not concerned here with her accident or other problems that she encountered with her health, but I am interested in the notion that factors from her infancy contributed to her work more significantly than her later experiences and were crucial...