Frida Kahlo biography: Google celebrates painters birthday

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myra

06 July, 2010

One of Mexico's most celebrated painters, Frida Kahlo, would have been 103 today, had she been alive.

One of Mexico's most celebrated painters, Frida Kahlo, would have been 103 today, had she been alive. Kahlo fans are honoring her life and Google has graced its homepage with a Frida doodle.

On canvas, Kahlo was known for her intense honesty and a mixing of fantasy and fact, but her real life was also a sad and painful medical story.

And, according to the Smithsonian, she actually considered becoming a doctor rather than a painter. Kahlo caught polio as a child, but overcame it, eventually learning to dance and play sports.

As a young woman, she was in a terrible trolley accident. Her spinal column was broken, her left leg smashed, and her right foot crushed. An iron handrail pierced her pelvis, perhaps leading to her inability later in life to carry a child.

After the accident, Kahlo was bedridden for months and began to paint the plaster corsets which held her in place. A special easel was created so she could paint lying down, and her mother placed a mirror on the ceiling over her bed.

It's best summed up by the love of Kahlo's life, Mexican painter Diego Rivera.