Frida Kahlo

ABSTRACT

In this article translated from the German original, author Kathrin Asper explores Frida Kahlo’s life and art—the scars and cuts of life, both physical and emotional, that were balanced by the light side of existence. Suffering the consequences of polio contracted as a child and a streetcar accident that left her with lifelong pain, Kahlo found herself through painting, using her experience as a palette. The themes of her art include suffering, transience, and nearness to death as well as the cuts of her husband’s, Diego Rivera’s, love affairs. Rarely were these experiences portrayed without the juxtaposition of the bright, beautiful, and colorfulness of life, however.

KEY WORDS:

• darkness
• disability studies
• Frida Kahlo
• light
• Mexico
• painting
• polarities
• self-portraits
• trauma

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

“Frida Kahlo: Light and Darkness” by Kathrin Asper was first published as “Frida Kahlo. Licht und Dunkelheit” in Jung Journal: Forum für Analytische Psychologie, in September 2005, and appears by permission of the C.G. Jung-Gesellschaft Köln e.V., Verein zur Förderung der Analytischen Psychologie.

Notes

1. Diego Rivera – Frida Kahlo Exhibition 1998. Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Martigny / Suisse, catalog, p. 204. See also Prignitz-Poda, Solomon, and Kettenmann, p. 202, No. 201.

^2. At the following mentions of the artist’s paintings, only the number from the Complete Works (CW) will be given (Prignitz-Poda, Grimberg, and Kettenmann, 1988).

^3. See, for example, The Broken Column (101) and Without Hope (110). See also CW 35, 42, and 119.

^4. See endnote 1: The aforementioned pencil drawing is clearly divided into squares, clearly visible in the catalog edition.

^5. Selection (title and number in the CW): Henry Ford Hospital (35), My Grandparents, Parents and Me (43), The Two Fridas (70), Roots (88), Portrait of Dona Rosita Morillo Safa (97), Self-Portrait with Monkey (106), Self-Portrait of the Circle (120).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kathrin Asper

KATHRIN ASPER is a diplomate analytical psychologist (Swiss Society of Analytical Psychology [SGAP], SPV), psychotherapist and psychoanalyst, as well as a lecturer, training analyst, and supervisor (SGAP/International School of Analytical Psychology [ISAP]). She is the author of The Abandoned Child Within: On Losing and Regaining Self-Worth and The Inner Child in Dreams. She has a private practice in Meilen near Zürich. Correspondence: [email protected].