Tuesday 12 July 2011

Frida Kahol & Diego Rivera at Pallant House

Frida Kahlo & Diego RiveraFrida Kahlo & Diego Rivera

Frida Kahlo


Frida Kahlo was born in Coyoacán on the southern outskirts of Mexico City in 1907. Her father, Guillermo, was an atheist German immigrant photographer, her mother, Matilde, a fervent Catholic of mixed Spanish and Native American descent from Oaxaca. Frida' s mixed heritage was seen as the undercurrent for the prevailing theme of identity in her work, and her divided loyalties to Mexico and Europe.
After contracting polio at the age of six, which left her convalescing at home for nine months, she then almost died at the age of 18, following a bus crash. It was at this point, in 1925, when she was again bedridden and isolated, that she began to paint. The defiant, unapologetic gaze of her self portraits asserts her right to exist, and her refusal to be a victim. The face is as passive as a religious icon, however the symbols in her work unmask fervent psychological undertones.
Kahlo painted self portraits she said ' because I am so often alone, I am the person I know best.' Her continued ill-health following the accident, including several miscarriages, provided her with the anguish, disconnection and loneliness which compelled her to paint, as a way of quantifying her existence, re-affirming her position in the world, and cementing her identity as an artist. It left her pre-occupied with mortality and trapped in a battle between her body and mind.
Her experiences also left Kahlo with a profound neediness, and desire for recognition, culminating in her life-long attachment to Rivera. She respected him and valued his opinion of her work enormously. She was Rivera' s protector and protected. He encouraged her to take great pride in being Mexican; she wore the traditional Tehuana costume, rebozo shawls, and braided her hair to please him, and continuously sought his approval and love, despite many infidelities on both sides (famously his affair with Kahlo' s sister Cristina, and her affair with Leon Trotsky.)


Frida Kahlo & Diego RiveraFrida Kahlo & Diego Rivera

Diego Rivera


Diego Rivera was born in Guanajuato but brought up in Mexico City. Celebrated as the founding father of the Mexican Muralist Movement, he was a talented painter with a striking personality and a fondness for debate. In 1907 he went to Europe on a painting scholarship to Madrid, then settled in Paris where he was influenced by Picasso, Bracque and the Futurists.
After seeking refuge in Spain during the First World War Rivera returned to Mexico and began working on monumental scale murals, incorporating elements of Cubism and Constructivism with a touch of Italian and Spanish classicism, and the colours of Mexican popular art. He was very political, a unionist who helped found the Mexican Communist Party. This greatly appealed to Kahlo, who herself as a student, one of the few women at her University, had been very political.
Rivera's masterpieces, of a very grand scale, are undoubtedly the murals he painted in public buildings. Rivera deliberately chose this route, and it is therefore difficult to give his achievements proper credit in temporary exhibitions outside Mexico. Nevertheless, his easel paintings reveal to a larger extent his talent. In truth, Kahlo excelled as an artist thanks to the support, stimulation and tutelage of Rivera, who was the foremost Mexican painter of his generation.
Kahlo and Rivera met in 1927, when she took some of her paintings to show him as he worked on a commission at the Ministry of Education. They married in 1929, her parents saying it was like the marriage between ' an elephant and a dove' . In the 1930s they spent four years in the United States where he worked on several large scale mural commissions in New York, Detroit and San Francisco.


So exciting to have this work HERE in Chichester !! I took Joel to see the show today . Interestingly some of Frida's early portraits are painted on metal ... I'm guessing that was what was to available at the time ?

Joel has been given a large/huge canvas/board-covered in paper and lovely Tony delivered it to Joel's studio yesterday . Barbara and I are very excited and hope it will be the stepping stone for Joel to larger things! I see charcole happening big time !!

Over to play at Barbra's !mmm


Kid in a sweet shop !!


Mmmmmm heaven





another look at the pond ...

keeping it black and white



Barbra's       Joel's

Yummy hand bound book made in Skye with Khadi Paper

The sketch book from Skye


Joel looking at Barbara's gorgeous sketches in 'that' book from her trip to Skye


my favourite sketches from Skye

current work



Barbara is super busy with a show openning at the Rebecca Hassock Gallery next week ,(21st July) but manages to cram in a few hours with Joel ...and decide to focus on the lilly pond outside her studio and keep it monotone ...she loves that black !!