Frida Kahlo: Painter, Icon, Genius

I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry Rowland. This is going to be an interesting one because I don't know how to say the ladies. Last ning, Jerry's over there with her spider monkey on her shoulder, a dead hummingbird hanging from her necklace, just like any other day. We're here in Lakasa Azul, right, and she's gotten ahold of some eyebrow pencil and filled in between the two across the bridge of our nose.

So I'm excited about this. A because you said frieda calo before we started recording freda Kalo, and B because you know my family's fascination with this woman in her work. No, we've talked about it before. That's okay. Though we've done a thousand episodes. We have talked about it before. Yeah, okay, well we'll get back into it. Yeah, we're way into Frieda. Emily is borderline obsessed? Is she a freedom maniac? She is?

And my daughter loves her. You know, there's like Frieda I hate to use the word, but kind of cults devotional groups where um they basically dress up and and are like Frieda. It's like channel Frieda Kalo. Yeah, because as one of these articles that we sourced from points out near the end um, not only does she draw in people for her art, but she draws in uh femineis and she draws in women who have suffered miscarriages and and disabled people who have suffered great pain and

chronic pain in their life. So she through her life she's able to um touch a lot of people because of her life. And I'm sure with any artist where if you know, the more you know about the artist, the more you can appreciate their art. With freed to Klo, it's almost like you gotta quit saying that Freda Calo Carlo. Carlo, my whole life have been saying free to Kyla, and I like it rules off the tongue. Yeah, but you know, let's give her the due respect. Um the when did

we start doing that? I don't know. Okay, so um, you almost you just almost can't fully appreciate any piece of her work without knowing at least the basics of her story. I think, well, yeah, and certainly once you know the basics, you're like, oh right, that's where all this comes from. It really makes sense. But she is a great artist, for sure. I was going back and looking at some of her art. You know, I'm familiar

with her, I know a little bit about her. Um, but I definitely saw some pieces that I didn't realize before. And just from researching this, I very much came to appreciate her even more. Like she's a great artist. Just the technique she used, the imagery she used, the symbolism,

I really dig it all. And it's like you can appreciate it because it gives you a visceral reaction, but you, the average person, can also get what she's feeling or what she's saying without being like this means this, and that means that she just kind of get it visually. It's something that you can get and appreciate pretty easily. Yeah. I mean we've we've seen her work in museums all over the world. Basically every new city we go to, we see, is there any free to color work there?

Have you been to Lakasa Zul? No, But that'll that's that's gonna happen. Oh, I'm sure. I was gonna say bucket list, but it's just on the list. I'm like, I don't want to do it when I'm eighty, right with with um Jack Nicholson or something. No, Morgan Freeman, No, no no, No, we're gonna go down there for sure. Alright, So let's let's start chronologically. Let's start at the beginning. That makes sense. So Freeda kalo Um she was born back in nineteen o seven, although she used to being

a revolutionary. She used to say that she was born in nineteen ten, which was the year of the Mexican Revolution. But she was born in a town which was very freed to. Yeah, freed to call thing to do? Right. Um. She was born in town called the Koyoa Khan which is outside of Mexico City, and she was born in that house Lacasa Zul the Blue House. Yeah, maybe maybe

not there. There's a lot of um parts of her early life, like the year she was born where other people say, like, man, she's actually born nearby, but she says she was born there, so uh, like her birth records indicated a different place, but it's we'll say she was born there at the very least it was her family's house, right, and she it was. It was in her life for her whole life, so much so she actually died in that house. Yeah. And it's a museum now,

yes it is. It's a national museum dedicated to free to Carlo cret Cool. We can visit, right. So, um, she was born in nineteen o seven they've figured out, apparently you figured out. And her father was he German or Hungarian? Because I saw both. Well, here's another little thing where he was German. He was born in Germany, but Freed always said that he was of Hungarian Jewish descent, but that just doesn't appear to be true like ancestry

gen genealogy records. So was he like German Protestant or something? Uh German? Um? Uh? What Lutheran? Lutheran? I think that's Protestant, I think I think so, but I think I think it was Lutheran. I can't remember. But his name, depending on it was Carl Wilhelm. But when he traveled to Mexico and the eight eighteen hundreds, he changed his name. He took the translation. The Spanish translation was original German name, which would have been Guillermo. Apparently it's a great name,

will though. Yeah, and then he became a Mexican citizen and married her mother, Matilda Calderon, who was um American Indian in Spanish. Yeah, and we should say Frieda. Frieda's full name is Magdalena Carmen Frieda Calo. He called her own great name. It is really there's a lot to it there. Basically gives you everything you want, right, that's right. So um, she was born in when someone else I came to admire from researching her. As her father, he seemed to have been a pretty cool cat. He was

a really good dad. Her mom was a little bit religiously hysterical, I think, and very strict, But her dad was a bit of a foil in that he raised Frieda. He noticed something in freed To It seems that she was different from her sisters, which she screamed, I mean just like she dressed in men's suits and things like that.

She was definitely different than her sisters. But he saw in her something very much different than her sisters, not just in her outward behavior, and so he kind of plucked her out of the path that his sisters were on, which was, you know, go get married, or go being educated into convent, Go get married, go be a wife, and said, you you're going to go a different path.

Let's get you in a different school here. Yeah. He was a photographer, so her first experiences with art were accompanying him on photo shoots and being in the studio with him. And like you said, he sent her to the German College in Mexico City, where she was introduced to European things, and um, very sadly she was sexually

abused there. Uh, and then ended up going to and I think was one of the first, one of only thirty five girls, young girls to go to the National Preparatory School in Mexico because that was right around the time in the Mexican Revolution. He said, maybe we should start letting young women in here. Yeah. And then doctor, Yeah, she excelled in in biology and some others and Moz

on a path to become a doctor actually. But one of the other things that she discovered at the UM, the Preparatory Academy of Mexico City was a real zeal for the Mexican revolutionary spirit. Yeah. I mean, not only did she learn about Europe, but she got really into learning about her indigenous roots. Yeah. Um, that seems to be something that fascinated her throughout her life, was her her European and her Mexican roots and how they combined in her and she explored them outwardly as well. She

even had a painting called roots. Oh yeah, kind of on the nose, uh and roots were growing out of her body even yeah, um we we kind of skipped over one very important thing in her life. When she was six, Um, she contracted polio and long recovery permanently damaged one of her legs. She had a very one of her legs was I think her right leg was smaller and just very skinny, a little withered. Yeah, and she had a permanent limp from that age, which was a big deal. It was just the beginning of a

lifetime of pretty horrendous um physical disabilities. In pain. Yeah, she was alive on the planet for forty seven years and starting at age six. You say that's when polio, She bet, that's when it began, at the at the at the latest, it started at six and continued all the way up to forty seven when she died. So at the in this kind of revolutionary group that she joined, um, the cachas, which means the caps are the hats, which

apparently today is Narco slang for cops. You know, kutchukas cachuchas. It's hard to say, yeah, because of the two. Is it's like Jason's coming or something. Um. She she fell in love with kind of the leader of that group, but really like she found herself as a revolutionary, right and not just a Mexican revolutionary. She also became a

communist ideologist and was for life. That's one thing that a lot of people don't realize is free to free to Carlo, this pop culture icon, this patron saying of of women, UM and feminists, was also very much a fervent communist. Actually, she referred to her husband later Diego Rivera, who you're about to mention um as nobody's husband. He was a lousy husband, but he was a great comrade. This is a great quote. Yeah. So that's when she fell in love with Alejandro Gomez Eddias and uh they

were together for about five years. And we'll get to kind of what happened toward the end of that relationship in a sec but Ino and she was just fifteen. She was at school, uh, at the preparatory school, and Diego Rivera, who was very famous artist, a muralist at the time, already this giant man, um like Alfred Molina's size, that's who played him, Um, even bigger, I think. Yeah. He was huge. Uh and you know, just tall and

rotund and just a big personality and everything. Sure. Yeah. Um. He was painting a mural at her school called Creation when she was just fifteen, and she would go out there and just basically kind of stare at him and while he was doing his work and sort of became

infatuated with him and the art. I get the picture that it was all sort of intertwined, and uh, you know, years later they would meet and marry and then remarry, which we'll get into the ins and outs of their relation chip, but it was it was an interesting love story of sorts. Artists. You know, yeah, should we take a break? All right, let's take a break, and we will talk about the tragic events that befel her at the age of eighteen. Okay, Chuck, So, like you said,

something really bad is about to happen to Frida. She's eighteen. She's on a bus with a boyfriend who was the leader of the Yeah, and um, the the bus was struck by a trolley, or vice versa. She was on a trolley struck by a bus, one of the two in either way. It was a bad, bad scene for her. Yeah, she was impaled by one of the handlebars. It went through pelvis into her womb, That's how I saw it. Put broke her spine. Um, she was in a bad way.

And supposedly her boyfriend walked away unharmed, which just makes it even worse, you know, Yeah, I mean the way I got it was that, you know, everyone was shaken up pretty bad. But it was this sort of freak thing that this rail impaled her hip that that she got the worst of it. Now, this would go on to be, in my opinion, the most significant event of her entire life, because it would it changed everything. It changed the course of everything. Remember, up to this point,

she's planning on becoming a doctor. Um, and she was so laid up for so long and so immobilized that she basically said, well, there goes my chance of being a doctor. I'm not going to be able to catch up. I'm not gonna be able to move. Who knows if I'll be able to walk again. Um, And it just shifted direction. Plus that whole womb thing is going to come into play later on and that will definitely influence her art for sure too. Yeah. So she's um, she's

bedridden for months. I think she had something like thirteen or fifteen surgeries from that point on for the next like thirty years. Um. And it turns out that she was a great painter, which must have been something to be like, well, I'm in this hospital bed that they're equipping me with this special easel that I can use in my full body cast lying down. They're gonna put a mirror on on the ceiling above me so I can be my own model. And she was very much

known for her self portraits. And she starts painting and is amazingly talented. Yeah. And at first she she was saying, Okay, well I can't be a doctor, and apparently I have this knack for painting. Maybe I'll be a medical illustrator. And once you hear that, when you see some of her work, you're like, oh, yeah, she basically he was a medical illustrator. Yeah, but in a exploring anatomy as a metaphor for emotion. Yes, from what I understand, right, Yeah,

I mean, I don't know. I mean, this might be hyperbolic to say this, but I don't know if any artists that poured herself out on the canvas as much as she did. Certainly not up to the point, especially female artists. Yeah, absolutely, up to this point when when Frieda Kello came along, like women were if you were emotional,

you were hysterical one. But you certainly weren't if you were a woman artist, you certainly weren't expected to explore emotions and grief and personhood and the self, and you certainly weren't expected to do it in your paintings. And she said her works showed that that was not the case. It wasn't even like you shouldn't do this, it was women can't do this. She him along and said, and actually we can, because I'm living proof. Yeah. And if you're a man, you're just a brooding artist. Yeah. If

you're a woman, you're hysterical. Um, you're depressed. And she just man, she laid it out there as raw as you can imagine, and especially for the time, it was just off the charts, how radical it was so so And she's able to do this because her family set up a special easel in a mirror for her to

be her own model. Yes, right, yes, so this is that, this is a big thing, like this is starting to come along and she she um passes the time while she's recuperating doing this, and she recovers enough that she goes back to school and starts hanging out with her old friends again. And from that re entry back into the revolutionary slash communist world in Mexico at the time, she ended up in the orbit of Diego Rivera again. Actually, they ran across each other at a party. Yeah, and

this was it. Man. From that point forward, they would be um. They would be tied to one another through their work and through their multiple marriages to one another. Uh. She was twenty two, he was twenty years older than her. Uh, and he very much Um, he may he very much encouraged her early on and champion her and was her mentors and artists. Was She went up to him at at this party and said, I want you to look at my work and tell me should I pursue this? To see this? Am I an artist? Or is this

just nothing? And he looked at her work and he said, you were an artist. This is astounding, Like do you have what it takes? And you should keep pursuing being an artist in as a matter of fact, let's get married. Yeah. I mean he was attracted to her, but um, I haven't seen anything that that led me to believe that any of his support of her work was not genuine and because he wanted to like get her in the sack. No, no, no, he wasn't that kind of guy. He would get anybody

in the sack. He certainly didn't have to marry you. And he's said, we didn't have to tell you you were a great artist. That is below him. I saw a thing. Yeah, they both had multiple affairs. We'll talk about that throughout their marriage. And you know, maybe or maybe not so understanding of each other doing so. Um, but I saw one point that he supposedly got his doctor to write a note that said that he was physically incapable of being faithful. Really, I don't know if

that's true or not. So he had I just want to get this quote, and he had a great quote about her um as an artist. He said that she was a realist as far as her arts concerned. She was quote the first woman in the history of art to treat with absolute and uncompromising honesty. One might even

say cruelty those general and specific themes which exclusively affect women. Yeah, like that's those are pretty strong words from a renowned artist who I mean, Diego Rivera was well renowned by this time already, So when he looked at her art and had things like that to say about it, it really meant something. She was. If she ever was an outsider artist, she wasn't anymore. She was a genuine artist. She'd been decreed as such by the cream of the crop. Yeah,

and she um. I think the article on her own website down plays a little bit her successes during her life. It's certainly nothing compared to what she got many many years later, decades later after her death. Um. They weren't freedom maniacs back then, but she wasn't she also was not just completely unknown as an artist. I mean she got some notoriety during her life. She got to know Picasso, she got to know I mean, these were the circles she traveled in, partially because of Diego Rivera. But um,

they started moving around, you know, starting in the nineteen thirties. Uh, they didn't stay in Mexico. They lived in San Francisco for a little while, Uh, depending on where the work was. Because he was a muralist, right, so he had to go to the place where he was doing that. Yeah, exactly. He can't say I'm gonna send you a mural, just tape tape it up. S me a wall. And he had her in tow which I get the impression like sometimes she was a willing accomplice and other times she

was very much homesick for Mexico. Yeah, she for sure miss Mexico. I know she did enjoy her time in like in New York and said, I don't know if she loved Detroit. I don't know if he didn't. They moved to Detroit while he worked for the Detroit Institute for the Arts, but very famously in the nineteen thirties they lived in New York City when Diego Rivero was commissioned by Nelson Rockefeller, who in the movie The Great Movie by Julie Taymore and Samahayak was played by Edward Norton.

Oh really, yeah, have you not seen that movie? Man? It's good and once you hear the h especially with the backstory now with the Weinstein stuff coming out. I mean, this was her passion, Samahaiaks, passion project for her life, and uh, he put her through a living hell. It's horrifying. I think it was. It might have been in New York or New York Times had a great iCal about it.

But um or that she wrote, I think, But um, I think what got me on that was Edward Norton was he rewrote the script for like for free because basically one of the Harvey's pick things was like, I'm not gonna give you any money for this, Like you gotta do it for almost nothing. Everyone's gonna have to

work for free. So she got everyone to work for free or you know scale Uh from Edward Norton to Julie Taymore, the Great director, and um he he demanded a lesbian sex scene like literally was like, I'm not doing this unless you do that. And uh, she was bisexual, so it wasn't like he created this out of thin air. But he's like, I want to see this on screen. Um. She supposedly had affairs with George O'Keefe and Josephine Baker and all these famous female performers and artists, but she

did not do that. I think she. I think she had a kissing scene with Ashley Judd at a party. Who is actually Judd supposed to be? I can't remember. I wou'd see it in a minute. Emily's mad that she's not here right now. I told her about this last night. She's like, why am I not on? It's like we don't have guests. She's like, I'm a guest on Movie Crush. I was like, well that's a different podcast altogether. Yeah. Um, she will pick this apart, trust me. But anyway, she had a devil of a time getting

that movie made. Uh, and it went on to great success and I think still is the highest grossing art based movie of all time. Yeah, that's what I saw. So anyway, they were in New York City because Nelson Rockefeller displayed Byward. Norton had commissioned Diego Rivera to paint a mural at Rockefeller Center called Man at the Crossroads, and in it it was one of these big um almost looked like a Sergeant Pepper's cover, you know, people all over the place. And Um, he snuck in Vladimir

Lenin in the painting. So I have a question about that. Did he sneak it in and was caught or was he like And also, by the way, I've included this great man Lenin, he snuck it in um as a response. Uh, it's a very pointed response to something. And I can't remember exactly what it was, but it wasn't originally in the plan and I don't know if it was in the original sketch. I might be getting this slightly wrong, but at any rate, he got linen in there, and

um Rockefeller was not happy. I mean, I think it was more of his family, like he he stayed, his friend wasn't like. He was like, I hate you your big poopy bands go back to Mexico. But he stopped the work. That painting was mural was removed and destroyed, but eventually was it destroyed. Yeah, man, pretty sad, but eventually um Rivera recreated that a little smaller in Mexico City and changed the title to Man Controller of the Universe.

And then in parenthes he's up yours. Rockefeller maybe so, but that just sort of puts a button on them. Moving kind of all around the United States for a while. And this is when she was being introduced to high society and and uh everyone from like I said, Josephine Baker too, to Trotsky and she was she was working at the time to write It's what. It wasn't like she was just hanging out. She was still And one of the paintings she um did was UM the Suicide

of Dorothy Hale. Yeah, that was interesting. So she was commissioned by Claire loose Booth little Deuce Coope. She was the she was from the publishing family of Time. I think she published Vanity Fair something like that. She's a great publishing magnate. Um And this was back in the thirties, and she was friends with Dorothy Hale, who was a an actress, a well known actress who had hit on hard times financially and was having to live on the

um generosity of her friends. And she climbed up to the highest point of the high rise that she lived off of inn jumped to her death and devastated Claire booth Loose and I hope I get that right at least somewhere, and who was her friend? And she commissioned fred To Calo to Um to do a painting, which she thought this would be a portrait to commemorate my friend Dorothy. That's not at all what free to Callo did. Yeah, I don't know she realized who she was commissioning, fully,

like have you seen her work? Right? So what freed to Calo did was she took this assignment and and commemorated not Dorothy Hale necessarily, but Dorothy Hail's death by suicide. It's it's almost like a step by step diagram. It shows her at the top of the building in mid air, and then in the foreground. Largest of all is her broken,

bloody body on the ground. But it has this very somber um text caption basically across the bottom in a scroll that explains what this is and that's how sad this is um and that it was the suicide of Dorothy Hale, and so um. Apparently when Claire uh booth Loose got got this, she unwrapped it and was like what is this gag? And she was going to destroy it and friends talked her out of it. So it's still in existence today. From what I understand, I think the booth or loose family has has the uh the

painting in their possession now. Yeah, and that's uh just emblematic of Frieda's outlook, which was like she was no bs, She's like, I'm gonna show you what's real. So let me ask you this. You're the Frieda expert here between the two of us. Was she doing that like like I'm all in your face, Claire, this is the reality

of your friend's suicide? Or was it she this is this was her expression of emotion that she thought Claire, I'm not saying her last two names, would would would kind of vibe on and like this would be the greatest commemoration of her friend. Which one. Well, I don't think it was all in your face. I think she thought that was the honesty. I think she thought that was the most honest work. But I'm not sure whether or not she considered like, wait a minute, is she

gonna hate this? Okay, so she wasn't like it doesn't matter she hates it. This is the This is the most honest work. So even if this psychologically destroys her, Claire needs it tough enough. I'm very curious. That's a good question. I don't know. I understand a lot of the symbolism and her paintings now, but I don't necessarily I haven't hit upon her motivation or personality quite yet. Family is gonna be so mad because she read her eight page biography and she's probably like, oh, we'll read

page six, jerks, and that will explain at all. Sorry again, Emily, that's right. You want to take a break, Yeah, let's do okay, alright, Chuck. So one other thing, very big thing happened to her in Detroit, actually, um, and she has a painting that commemorates it, called henry Ford Hospital. She had her second miscarriage, and this her miscarriages. I believe she just head the two. Um. But that's all right. Um. She those would affect and influence her work for the

rest of her life. They deeply impacted her, and not just emotionally impacted her. But they were themed, she explored, you know, like, can you still be a mother to other things even if you don't bear your own children? Can you, um, you know, like like how does it affect your femininity? That's it's it's a theme that really affected her and she explored and it really is just right there in broad bold colors in henry Ford Hospital. Yeah. I mean she she very famously had was a mother

too many animals. She had spider monkeys, she had dogs, cats, birds, she had a pet deer um all at her at her house. We have a great children's book called that I recommend called Free to Calla and her animalitos. Uh that's really really fun for kids, but um, and adults actually, But yeah, she really wanted to be a mother and it was devastating to her that she couldn't be. Uh. And like you said, like with all her work so raw and laid bare. Um and and I assume most

people have seen her work. Like we'll talk about some of it a little bit. It wouldn't hurt to kind of brush up on these if you have a couple of tabs handy while we're talking. Yeah, but lots of blood, lots of um exposed organs, blood vessels connecting her to things. Yeah, it's just um, it's like you said, you don't have to work hard to understand what she's getting at when there's a painting of her with her like body cavity split open and like a baby bunny where her womb is. Actually,

I think I just made that part. If that's a great idea. I like that imagery. It wouldn't surprise me if that was one of her paintings, you know. Um, there was a lot of pain, physical pain depicted in her paintings. And this is another huge theme or motif or whatever you want to call it, um to where her the physical pain depicted. And again, remember she's painting

herself almost exclusively here. Um. Her emotional pain is depicted as physical pain, so like nails all over her body, or she has a huge terror going uh vertically up the middle of her body, and her spine is a doric column that's crumbling. Just just physical imagery that it did depict her physical pain too. She was always in a lot of pain throughout her life physically, but she also suffered a lot of emotional and psychic pain as well, and all of it was combined as physical pain an

evisceration and being laid open in her paintings. Yeah, and uh, eventually she would meet Andre U bet is it? Is it Beton or Breton, the father of surrealism. Yeah, and he is the one. Uh. She actually um in a funny way, kind of said she never considered herself as surrealist until Andre Breton came to Mexico and told me I was one. Really, I do not know whether my paintings are surrealist or not, but I do know that they are the Frankist expression of myself. But she is.

If you want to classify or art wise, surrealism or magic surrealism is uh, definitely categories that her. A lot of her work fits under. So I saw a m I mean, we used a lot of sites for this. I can't remember which when it came from. But I saw a description of her work as um that she was an individualist, which means like she was her own thing. She may have had influences, and she definitely had Mexican

indigenous art in fluence. It was a huge thing that really drives like the visual um impact of her paintings. But as far as like schools of art go or movements she was, she tapped into primitivism, indigenism, magic realism, surrealism, and um again, all of it combined to make her

an individualist artist. Well, yeah, you mentioned the her indigenous roots and and she very much and and I think Diego Rivera's one who really encouraged her to embrace that, and she started she kind of I mean, she wore suits and stuff sometimes since she was a kid, but she wore more European style of clothing when she was younger, and then really started wearing more Mexican indigenous stuff. Yeah,

really colorful stuff. And uh, most famously captured in maybe her most famous painting, The Two Fridas in N. Nine. It's the double self portrait that on one side shows or in the more modern European clothing um and then on the other side it's her in her more indigenous Mexican clothing, and both of them have their hearts exposed. I think on the European side, the arteries are severed in things. On the Mexican side, it's intact, the heart is intact. Really really pretty, it is very pretty. A

lot of her work was pretty. Some of it sometimes it's like it looks very primitive, and then other times they're in some details like the eyes of a cat or something like that, you're like, wow, that's really it's very like almost photo realistic. Yeah, so it's it's very weird to me how her Um, I don't want to say her talent, but her Yeah, her visual talents kind of we're applied in some places and not not as much in others. And I'm wondering what the details were

that that made her make those decisions. Yeah, she included her pets and a lot of her paintings. I think fifty five of her paintings featured her pets. Um some very famous ones with her her spider monkeys and birds on her shoulder. My favorite one is called What the Water Gave Me, Um. It's a it's a oh, I guess.

This is a self portrait in a way of her in a bathtub from her vantage point, so you just see her her feet and toes sticking out at the end of the tub, and then the water is just full of all kinds of other stuff, Like it's really nice, like there's a volcano with the Empire State building coming out of the center of it, with like gangrenous lava flowing over the sides. Because she would get gang green later in life, just another physical malady and had one

of her legs amputated below the knee. Uh. There was a dead bird, a one legged bird, um being pierced by a tree. There's a nude woman floating next to her dress looks like her parents on their wedding day. And it's it's all like in the bathtub water um with her feet and toes sticking out. One toe of course, is is mangled and cracked and bloody. Um. There was so much gruesome, so many grewesome aspects to so much of her work. But um, it kind of punches you

in the gut very much like it's. To see these things in person is like, especially if you're a fan of her work, to actually stand in front of one of them and put your nose six inches from it is is really pretty pretty astounding. Do not sneeze, um, do not sneeze on the art. They have signs everywhere this This article our hows to works article points out the Wounded Deer and My Birth both in the same paragraph. Here.

Those are two of my favorites. Actually, My birth is so just just twisted, but it's also really simple and straightforward. It's her mother, but you assume it's her mother. The sheets actually placed over her mother's head, so you never see her face, and you also kind of get the impression that it could be freed to as well. Um, but it's Frieda's head, grown up, freeda like coming out

of the birth canal, the womb as it were. I feel like such like a nineteenth century like white guy calling it a womb, you know, but um, yeah, it is graphic, but it's also it looks it kind of I don't know. I don't want to armchair critique it or anything like that. I just like that one. Um,

and then uh, the wounded Deer I think is awesome too. Yeah, we should probably apologize to every art historian and critic, Like when it comes to art I love and I know you do too, love going to museums, and you're probably where I am, which is I just like what I like, Like, you know, if it looks nice to me, and nice doesn't mean oh that's pretty, but you know, if if it touches me in some way, I'm like,

I like that. Sure, I don't supposed to do. I enjoy reading the placards and then understanding a bit more behind it. But I'm definitely not some art historian or critic all I do appreciate being having art explained to me by our historians and by people who know, like Sister Wendy that whole series from the eighties or nineties. Oh Man, I've told you about before. She's this nun

who understands art better than anybody in the world. And she had like a little PBS series for a while where she could just explain art and you just wanted to watch the next episode so bad. But I think the level that you and I are at that you were characterizing is um. It was best captured on a Simpsons where there was a museum audio tour that was narrated by Melanie Griffith, and when they put it on press play, She's like, Oh, let's see what's in this room. Oh,

this one's nice. I like this one. Oh look at that one. What's in the next room. That's the level we're at of understanding and appreciating art. Uh we We briefly mentioned Leon Trotsky earlier, the exile communists and rival to stalin Um. They were friends and and they host did him. She and Diego Rivera at the Blue House and supposedly had a brief affair Um. Although other people have questioned whether or not was whether or not she really did because of I think last year a lot

of her love letters to Diego were published. Yeah, and it's really interesting their relationship. You know, they divorced in nineteen thirty nine, um remarried the next year in nty lived in separate houses. They both had their infidelities, but UM a really interesting complex relationship um mentor student lovers, friends, rivals as well in some cases. Uh, but it's hard to obviously as an outsider encapsulated on a podcast, but a very complex relationship full of respect and admiration on

some levels. But also uh, he was also that you know, sort of of the time in Mexico and America, just that male macho thing going on. I mean, for goodness sakes, he tried to have his doctor write a note at the city, was physically capable of being faithful. So let's just say male dominant complex marriage and relationship. Well, I also saw she could kind of, you know, put up with his affairs and and she definitely had her own. But supposedly he his affair with her younger sister like

really crushed her. Yeah, that that was I think led directly to their divorce. Yeah, I could see that. Yeah, that was uncool. Yeah, diego, Yeah, even with the doctor's note. Diego. Yeah. And he died just a few years after her, I believe right. I don't know when he died, actually, yeah, I think he died three years after her. Um. By the nineteen fifties, her health was really declining. She kept

having these surgeries, kept painting. Nineteen fifty three, she had a so exhibition and man, she couldn't get around and this is so great in the movie. They she wasn't gonna go at all. And then they brought her in by ambulance, brought in a four poster bed and that's where she was in the gallery. She was laying in bed like greeting people. Yeah, she received everyone while she was in bed, bedridden. Pretty amazing. And she died a

couple of weeks later. I think, actually, I think the last time she was seen in public she showed up for a protest against the US back coup that overthrow overthrew our bends in Guatemala. Yeah, Edward Burne's coming back in right into the picture every time. Um. And she she died again at age forty seven. Man, after a life of pain, but a very very productive life of

pain too changed things quite a bit. Yeah, and with her death, she um it's listed as pulmonary embolism, but they never did an autopsy, and there it's generally believed that she committed suicide by how pills her. Her personal nurse said that she took twelve I think pain killers when she knew that her max was seven, and earlier that evening she had given Diego an anniversary present a month early, which it all kind of adds up in

the chronic pain. And just you know, this was after polio, after gang Green, after amputation, after pneumonia, after the bus accident, after the bus accident, so um, yeah, she may have just ended it understandably. So her when she died, like you said, she was you know, fairly well known in certain circles in the art world. But when she died, her work kind of entered into obscurity. For a few decades, it was dormant, and then yeah, it's well put and

then in the late seventies it was rediscovered. Um bye bye. I guess nationalists you could call them art nationalists in Mexico and she has been basically a pop icon ever since. Once her story was really um established and built and her work came back out. She's just never really left the art scene. Since it's is pretty cool, very cool. Uh, if she is in a museum near you go check it out. Do you want to do you want to talk about her famous eyebrow because I think this this

article did a really good job of addressing it. Yeah, so she has she painted herself. She very famously had what you would call a unibrow right, and she would paint it a lot. But the article on how Stuff Works quotes a um a book by Desmond Morris called The Naked Woman a Study of the female body, and he basically says Desmond Morris says that like women will will pluck the their unibrow into nothingness like religiously, and then it takes a woman who is above fashion too

to flaunt her unit brow. And that that perfectly that that term above fashion perfectly encapsulates free to call o, which I thought was a pretty cool thing because Desmond Morris wasn't talking about free to callo. This article went out of its way to go find that and bring it in, and I think it analyzes her appreciation of

herself inside and out pretty well. Yeah, I mean, if that was one thing that she did on her canvas was say this is me in every single way, inside and out and her her legacy in the art world, especially among among women female artists, is like the the one article we read City just can't overstate the importance nice anything else. No, I apologize for all the mistakes. Yeah, sorry, let's do Andy Warhol one. Next. I tried to do right by this one. Okay, yeah, I was apologizing to

Emily specifically, right. Sorry. I'm uh. If you you want, if you're not Emily and you want to know more about free to call up. You can search her on our website. There's actually a pretty decent little article, and then there's tons of stuff. Go look at our art all over the web and in person. And since I said that's time for the listener mail, I'm gonna call this mistakes in defense of us. Hey, guys, I'm sure you get annoyed at the influx of emails you get

every time you make a mistake on your podcast. At least that's what I gleaned from a few recent episodes, where you anticipate people writing in and correcting you in a fact how ironic. Um, I'm writing the counterbalance that you guys do a fantastic job. I'm amazed that you were able to cover topics in such detail, with such high turnover rate, with how quickly produce episodes. I would expect so many more mistakes or sloppy work. But not not with you. Excuse me, no, not with you. I

like not not. UM. I'm starting my own podcast and it's made me deeply appreciative how talented and gifted you guys are as hosts. One day, I hope I'll be as smooth and easy going as you are as always. Please keep going with your work. You're my favorite podcast. I also want to give a shout out, especially to your Trail of Tears episodes. I recently went into the archives and listened to those two. Uh. You told that

story beautifully. I think you really did it justice and I would recommend that anyone who hasn't listened and go back and listen anyway. Seriously, thank you for adding something fun to my life. And that great name is from uh Shelina Bathala or maybe Batala depending on how you pronounce it. Uh. And she is the host, and I asked her well you're a bad plugger of your own work because I don't even know what your podcast is going to be about. But it's coming soon. It's called

worth It. Yeah, good title. Yeah, everyone. That is how you get your podcast plugged on stuff that's right. Whoa whoa whoa breaking news. Yeah, came back to life. No. I just got an email reply from Shelina and she said, my podcast is about helping will create a life that they're happy with. Nice. I think a lot of people feel lost, don't feel connected to themselves, or feel scared to do what they actually want to do, like pursue a creative career or do something that makes far less money.

So I talked to people who have been there, who are still there, and about their journey and what they have done to create happiness in their life. It's gonna be good. Yeah, good job. That sounds great. Yeah. Hurry up, Shelina. Yeah, okay, best of luck. We're worth It coming soon to a podcast distributors near gu wherever you find your podcast. All right, uh, and if you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us at s y s K podcast. I'm at josh um Clark on Twitter and chuck that

movie crush on Twitter um. You can also hang out with us on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know or Facebook dot com slash Charles W. Chok Bryant. You can send us all an email The Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com, and there's always joining Sutter home on the web Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more miss and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com. M hm hm