The Two Fridas

The Two Fridas, double self-portrait painted by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo in 1939 during her divorce from artist Diego Rivera. The large oil-on-canvas painting (5.69 × 5.68 feet [1.74 × 1.73 metres]) depicts two nearly identical female figures seated on the same bench and holding hands amid a barren landscape and cloudy sky. Although Kahlo’s diary says the painting was inspired by a memory of an imaginary childhood friend, scholars have speculated that it represents how Kahlo may have seen herself: made up of two conflicting identities.

Description

In the painting, both figures possess the unmistakable features of their creator: bold eyebrows, facial hair, a braided updo, and an austere outward gaze. The figure on the left wears a high-necked European-style wedding dress, suggesting Kahlo’s Western lineage; her father was a German of Hungarian descent. The figure on the right, meanwhile, dons a traditional Tehuana ensemble comprising a colourful skirt and huipil, a loose-fitting cap-sleeve tunic. The outfit pays homage to Kahlo’s Indigenous heritage; her mother was a Mexican of Spanish and Native American descent. The pair’s exposed anatomical hearts hover over their chests. The Frida on the right has a heart that appears healthy and intact. One of the blood vessels spirals down her left arm and ends in a miniature portrait of Rivera as a child, clasped in her left hand. Another blood vessel extends beyond her shoulders and winds its way behind the neck of the Frida on the left and into her heart, binding the two figures together. This heart appears wounded, with its outer structure stripped away to reveal the anatomy within. The lace of the dress seemingly disintegrates around it, exposing the breast of the Frida on the left. A blood vessel exits the heart and loops onto her lap, where she clamps it with a surgical tool. Blood pools from the cut end and into the folds of the embroidered white dress.

Style

The painting exemplifies Kahlo’s distinct self-taught style, which employs the bright colours and flatness of Mexican folk art and includes fantastical elements associated with Surrealism. Although Kahlo did not consider herself a Surrealist, saying “I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality,” the painting was included in the “International Exhibition of Surrealism,” at the Gallery of Mexican Art, Mexico City, in 1940. Indeed, her work recalls the imaginary and grotesque images of such painters as Hiëronymus Bosch and Francisco Goya, who influenced the Surrealists. By incorporating the visceral imagery of wounded and exposed bodies, Kahlo represents her ongoing struggle with chronic pain and illness. In addition to contracting polio as a child, which left her with a slight limp, Kahlo was also involved in a serious bus accident in 1925 that left her disabled and unable to bear children. Throughout her life she suffered multiple miscarriages and underwent dozens of surgeries, experiences that are the subjects of paintings throughout her oeuvre, such as Henry Ford Hospital (1932) and The Broken Column (1944).

About the time Kahlo married Rivera in 1929, the subjects of her paintings became flatter and more abstract than those in her previous work, which may reflect her enthusiasm for Mexican folk art as well as the influence of Rivera’s interest in Indigenismo. The ideology, which advocates for a dominant social and political role for Mexico’s Indigenous population, became popular after the Mexican Revolution (1910–20). Kahlo adopted Indigenismo into both her own paintings and the way she presented herself, all but abandoning the European fashion she had worn for most of her life. One of her early paintings, Self-Portrait Wearing a Velvet Dress (1926), shows the artist wearing a modern European dress. By the time she had painted The Two Fridas, the brilliantly coloured artisanal outfits of the Tehuna culture had become synonymous with Kahlo’s public image.

Analysis

In The Two Fridas Kahlo grapples with the heartbreak she endured during her divorce from Rivera and perhaps throughout their relationship. Their first decade of marriage (they would remarry a year after their divorce) was punctuated with countless affairs—Rivera with multiple women, including Kahlo’s sister, and Kahlo with other men and women, including the celebrity photographer Nickolas Muray. According to an insight Kahlo shared with a friend about The Two Fridas, the Frida in Tehuana costume, whose heart is intact, represents the Frida that Rivera loved, while the Frida in white, whose heart looks as if it has been ripped open, represents the Frida that Rivera rejected. The composition of The Two Fridas recalls Frieda and Diego Rivera, a wedding portrait painted by Kahlo in 1931. In the earlier painting, the newly wed couple are shown holding hands in a symbol of unity. However, their gazes are directed away from one another, imbuing the scene with a sense of emotional dissonance. In The Two Fridas Kahlo’s Western self takes the place of Rivera, and, although her two sides oppose one another, they are inextricably entwined, bonded with their hearts and hands in quiet resolve.

History

In 1947 The Two Fridas was acquired by the Mexican National Institute of Fine Arts, Mexico City, directly from Kahlo. In 1966 it was transferred to the Museum of Modern Art, also in Mexico City, where it resides today.