September 17, 2022 • 47 mins
Frida Kahlo was a painter who transcended her own work to became an icon. Learn all about her fascinating and inspiring life and work in this classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, folks, is Chuck here, and it's Saturday, and that
means it's time for a select episode that we curate
by hand and brain and mouth. This one is about
one of my favorite painters of all time, one of
my family's favorite painters. My wife Emily loves fred to Carlo,
my daughter loves Free to Carlo. We have two giant
(00:21):
hand painted reproductions on canvas of two of our favorite
Free to Carlos hanging in our sunroom. And one day
we are finally, finally going to go down to Kasa
Azul and see where Freda lived and worked, because that
is on the bucket list and it's going to happen.
So check out this podcast episode about this iconic genius
(00:42):
artist of a woman, Free to Carlo Colon painter, icon genius.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
(01:06):
and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry Rowland.
It's going to be an interesting one because I don't
know how to say the ladies last name. 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 Laasa Azul, right, and she's gotten ahold
(01:26):
of some eyebrow pencil and filled in between the two
across the bridge of her nose. So I'm excited about this.
A because you said Freda Calo before we started recording
Frida Kayla, and B because you know my family's fascination
with this woman in her work. No, we've talked about
(01:48):
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 mania? She is?
And my daughter loves her. You know, there's like Freda
I hate to use the word, but kind of cults
(02:08):
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 source from points
out near the end um, not only does she draw
in people for her art, but she draws in feminists,
(02:29):
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
(02:49):
you know, the more you know about the artist, the
more you can appreciate their art. Sure, with Freda Kalo,
it's almost like you gotta quit saying that Frieda Kalo
calo colo my whole life. I've been saying free to Kayla,
and I like it rolls 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,
(03:13):
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
(03:33):
back and looking at some of her art, and 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
(03:54):
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
(04:16):
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,
(04:36):
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 free to klo 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 free to yeah,
(04:57):
free to call thing to do. Right. Um, she was
born a town called 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,
she's actually born nearby, but she says she was born there,
(05:19):
so uh, like her birth records indicated different place, but
it's we'll say she was born there. At the very
least it was her family's house, right. Oh, 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. Pretty cool. We
(05:41):
can visit, right. So, Um, she was born in nineteen
o seven, they've figured out, apparently you figured out and
her father was a German or Hungarian because I saw both. Well,
here's another little thing where oh boys, he was German.
He was born in Germany, but Freed always said that
he was of Hungarian Jewish descent. But that just doesn't
(06:03):
appear to be true like ancestry 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
(06:25):
Carl Wilhelm. But when he traveled to Mexico in the
late 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. Yeah. And then
he became a Mexican citizen and married her mother, Matilda Calderon,
(06:48):
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. So, um,
she was born and when someone else I came to
(07:09):
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 bits 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 Freda. It seems that she was different
(07:32):
from her sister's, which she screamed, I mean just like
she dressed in men's suits and things like that. She's
definitely different than her sister's. 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,
(07:55):
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,
(08:19):
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
(08:41):
women in here. Yeah, and then she wanted to be
a doctor. Yeah. She excelled in in biology and some
others in Mozana 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
(09:03):
only did she learn about Europe, but she got really
into learning about her indigenous roots. Um. That seems to
be something that fascinated her throughout her life. Yeah, for sure,
was her her European in 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
(09:26):
of her body even 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
(09:47):
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 and pain. She
was alive on the planet for forty seven years and
starting at age six. You say that's when Poli she
(10:08):
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 cuchus,
which means the caps are the hats, which apparently today
is Narco slang for cops into yeah, catchukastchas. It's hard
(10:32):
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
(10:53):
and was for life. That's one thing that they a
lot of people don't realize is free to free to Carlo,
this pop culture icon, this patron saint 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
(11:16):
lousy husband, but he was a great comrade. This is
a great quote. Yeah, so Ine, 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 towards the end of that relationship in
a sec But in two and she was just fifteen.
She was at school, uh, at the preparatory school. And
(11:40):
Diego Rivera, who was very famous artist, a muralist at
the time, already this giant man um like Alfred Molina's
eye 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 like Edward Herman. Sure. Yeah. Um.
(12:02):
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,
(12:23):
years later they would meet and marry and then remarry,
which we'll get into the ins and outs of their relationship,
but it was it was an interesting love story of
sorts artists. You know, should we take a break? All right,
let's take a break and we will talk about the
the tragic events that befell her at the age of eighteen. Okay, Chuck, So,
(13:05):
like you said, something really bad is about to happen
to Frida. She's eighteen. She was on a bus with
a boyfriend who was the leader of the Yeah, and um,
they 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,
(13:25):
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,
(13:46):
everyone was shaking 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. And 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
(14:08):
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
(14:30):
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
(14:52):
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 casts 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
(15:13):
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 was a medical illustrator. Yeah, but in a
exploring anatomy as a metaphor for emotion. Yes, from what
(15:38):
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. Oh yeah, absolutely, up
to this point when when free Callo came along, like
(16:02):
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
(16:22):
showed that that was not the case. It wasn't even
like you shouldn't do this, it was women can't do this.
And she came 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. 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 could imagine, and especially for
(16:46):
the time, it was just off the charts how radical
it was. Right, 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. Right, yes,
so this is that, this 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
(17:07):
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
(17:28):
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 yea and champion her and was
(17:49):
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 it?
To this? Am I an artist? Or is 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
(18:10):
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 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 certainly didn't have to tell you were a
great artist that is below him. I saw a thing.
(18:34):
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.
(18:56):
So he had I just want to get this quote,
and he had a great quote of 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
(19:19):
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,
(19:39):
and she Um. I think the article on her own
website downplays 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
(20:02):
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
(20:23):
go to the place where he was doing. Yeah, exactly.
He can't say, I'm gonna send you a mural, just
tape tape it up, send 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
(20:45):
like in New York and said, I don't know if
she loved Detroit. I don't know if anybody 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 rocket Feller, who in the movie The
Great Movie by Julie Taymore and Samahayak was played by
(21:06):
Edward Norton. Oh yeah, have you not seen that movie? Man?
It's good and once you hear the uh, especially with
the backstory now with the Weinstein stuff coming out, I mean,
this was her passion, Salamahayaks passion project for her life,
and uh, he put her through a living hell. It's horrifying.
(21:26):
I think it was. It might have been a New
York or New York Times had a great article about it.
But um or that she wrote, I think, But um,
I think what got me on that was Edward Norton.
Was he he rewrote the script for Like for Free
because basically one of Harvey's picks 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
(21:47):
work for free. So she got everyone to work for
free or you know scale uh. From Edward Norton to
Julie Tamore, 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 she was bisexual,
so it wasn't like he created this out of thin air,
(22:09):
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 haven't seen it in a minute. Emily's mad that
(22:31):
she's not here right now. I told her about this
last night and she's like, why am I not honest?
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
(22:53):
based movie of all time. Yeah, that's what I saw. Ye.
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
(23:15):
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 it 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,
as a very pointed response to something. And I can't
(23:36):
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 Lenin in there, and um,
Rockefeller was not happy. I mean, I think it was
more of his family. Like he he stayed his friend.
It wasn't like he was like, I hate you your
big poopy bands. Go back to Mexico. But he stopped
(24:00):
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 parentheses up yours Rockefeller. Maybe so,
(24:25):
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 painting. And
(24:46):
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 or something like that.
She's a great publishing magnate um And this was back
(25:07):
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
(25:32):
that right at least somewhere, and who was her friend?
And she commissioned Freda 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 fred
to Callo did. Yeah, I don't know she realized who
she was commissioning fully, like have you seen her work? Right?
So what Freda Calo did was she took this assignment
(25:55):
and and commemorated not Dorothy Hale necessarily, but Dorothy Hails
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
(26:20):
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
(26:41):
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
(27:03):
the freedom 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
(27:25):
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
(27:49):
destroys her, Claire needs is 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 person
reality quite yet. Family is gonna be so mad because
she read her biography and she's probably like, oh, we'll
read page six, right, jerks, and that will explain at all.
(28:09):
Sorry again, Emily, that's right. Do you want to take
a break, Yeah, let's do okay, alright, Chuck. So one
(28:35):
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's just head the two
I think so. Um, but that's all right. Um. She
(28:58):
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?
(29:19):
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
(29:39):
had a pet deer, um all at her at her house. Uh.
We have a great children's book called that I recommend
called Fred 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, with all her work so raw and laid bare. Um.
(30:04):
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 organ blood
vessels connecting her to things. Yeah, it's just um, it's
like you said, you don't have to work hard to
(30:25):
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 of 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.
(30:47):
And this is another huge theme or motif for 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 vertically up the middle of her body,
(31:10):
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 and evisceration and being laid open
(31:31):
in her paintings. Yeah, and uh, eventually she would meet
Andre 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
(31:52):
told me I was one. Really, I do not know
whether my paintings are surrealists or not, but I do
know that they're the Frankist expression of myself. Um. But
she's if you want to classify her 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.
(32:13):
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 influenced. That's a huge thing that really drives
like the visual um impact of her paintings. But as
(32:35):
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
(32:57):
much and and I think Diego Rivera is one who
really incur urged 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.
(33:17):
And most famously captured in maybe her most famous painting,
the Two Frida's in nine nine. It's the double self
portrait that on one side shows her in the more
modern European clothing um, and then on the other side
it's her in her more indigenous Mexican clothing, and both
(33:38):
of them have their hearts exposed. I think on the
European side, the arteries are severed and 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
(33:59):
eye as 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
(34:22):
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
only guess. This's a self portrait in a way of
(34:42):
her in a bathtub from her vantage points, 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 I
don't think I've seen that one. It's really nice. Like
there's a volcano with the Empire State building coming out
of the center of it, with like and grennius lava
flowing over the sides. Because she would get gang green
(35:04):
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
(35:25):
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 gruesome 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
(35:47):
of them and put your nose six inches from it
is is really pretty pretty astounding. Do not sneeze, Do
not sneeze on the art. They have signs everywhere. This article,
our Howstuff 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
(36:11):
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 Frieda like coming out of
(36:31):
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
(36:53):
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
(37:16):
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, although I do
appreciate being having art explained to me by our historians
and people who know, like Sister Wendy, that whole series
(37:36):
from the eighties or nineties, I don't know that. Oh man,
I've told you about before. She's this nun who understands
art better than anybody in the world, and so 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. Yeah, But I think the level
that you and I are at that you were characterizing
is um it was best captured on a Simpsons There
(38:00):
was a museum audio tour that was narrated by Melanie Griffith,
and when they put it on press place, 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, Melanie Griffith level. Uh we we
(38:22):
briefly mentioned Leon Trotsky earlier, the exile Communists and rival
to Stalin Um. They were friends and and they hosted 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
(38:43):
love letters to Diego were published. Yeah, and it's really
interesting their relationship. You know, they divorced in ninety nine,
um remarried the next year. In lived in separate houses.
They both had their infidelity. Is but um a really
interesting complex relationship UM mentor student lovers, friends, rivals as
(39:10):
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
(39:33):
male macho thing going on. I mean, for goodness sakes,
he tried to have his doctor write a note 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
(39:54):
supposedly he his affair with her younger sister, like really
trusted her. 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
(40:14):
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 solo exhibition
and man, she couldn't get around. And this is so
great in the movie. They she wasn't gonna go at all.
(40:36):
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
(40:59):
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 to change things quite a bit. Yeah.
And with her death, she um, it's listed as pulmonary embolism,
(41:22):
but they never did an autopsy in there. It's generally
believed that she committed suicide. 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
(41:43):
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. Yeah. So her when she died,
(42:05):
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 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.
(42:28):
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, which 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
(42:50):
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
(43:11):
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
that it takes a woman who is above fashion too
to flaunt her unibrow, and that that perfectly that that
(43:33):
term above fashion perfectly encapsulates free to call o, which
I thought was a pretty cool thing because the 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 met in every single way inside
(43:57):
and out, and her her leg see in the art world,
especially among among women and female artists, is like the
the one article we read. City just can't overstate the importance.
Nice got anything else? No, I apologize for all the mistakes. Yeah, sorry,
(44:18):
let's do Andy Warhol one. Next. I tried to do
right by this one. Okay, yeah, okay, I apologizing to
Emily specifically, right. Sorry. Uh. If 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
(44:39):
tons of stuff. Go look at our art all over
the web and in person. And since I said that
as time for 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 and correcting you want to fact how ironic, Um,
(45:04):
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 kind of like not not. Um.
I'm starting my own podcast, and it's made me deeply
(45:25):
appreciative of how talented and gifted you guys are as host.
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. 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
(45:47):
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 burn out 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
(46:07):
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?
Who whoa whoa breaking news? Oh yeah, came back to life. No.
I just got an email reply from Shelina and she said,
(46:27):
my podcast is about helping people create a life that
they're happy with. 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 about their journey and what they have done
to create happiness in their life. It's gonna be good. Yeah,
(46:49):
good job. That sounds great. Yeah, hurry up, Shelina, Yeah okay,
best of luck with worth it coming soon to a
podcast distributor near you wherever you find your podcast right
uh And if you want to get in touch with us,
you can tweet to us at s y s K
podcast um. You can also hang out with us on
Facebook at Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know.
(47:10):
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.
Stuff you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows
Hi, folks, is Chuck here, and it's Saturday, and that
means it's time for a select episode that we curate
by hand and brain and mouth. This one is about
one of my favorite painters of all time, one of
my family's favorite painters. My wife Emily loves fred to Carlo,
my daughter loves Free to Carlo. We have two giant
(00:21):
hand painted reproductions on canvas of two of our favorite
Free to Carlos hanging in our sunroom. And one day
we are finally, finally going to go down to Kasa
Azul and see where Freda lived and worked, because that
is on the bucket list and it's going to happen.
So check out this podcast episode about this iconic genius
(00:42):
artist of a woman, Free to Carlo Colon painter, icon genius.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
(01:06):
and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry Rowland.
It's going to be an interesting one because I don't
know how to say the ladies last name. 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 Laasa Azul, right, and she's gotten ahold
(01:26):
of some eyebrow pencil and filled in between the two
across the bridge of her nose. So I'm excited about this.
A because you said Freda Calo before we started recording
Frida Kayla, and B because you know my family's fascination
with this woman in her work. No, we've talked about
(01:48):
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 mania? She is?
And my daughter loves her. You know, there's like Freda
I hate to use the word, but kind of cults
(02:08):
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 source from points
out near the end um, not only does she draw
in people for her art, but she draws in feminists,
(02:29):
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
(02:49):
you know, the more you know about the artist, the
more you can appreciate their art. Sure, with Freda Kalo,
it's almost like you gotta quit saying that Frieda Kalo
calo colo my whole life. I've been saying free to Kayla,
and I like it rolls 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,
(03:13):
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
(03:33):
back and looking at some of her art, and 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
(03:54):
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
(04:16):
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,
(04:36):
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 free to klo 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 free to yeah,
(04:57):
free to call thing to do. Right. Um, she was
born a town called 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,
she's actually born nearby, but she says she was born there,
(05:19):
so uh, like her birth records indicated different place, but
it's we'll say she was born there. At the very
least it was her family's house, right. Oh, 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. Pretty cool. We
(05:41):
can visit, right. So, Um, she was born in nineteen
o seven, they've figured out, apparently you figured out and
her father was a German or Hungarian because I saw both. Well,
here's another little thing where oh boys, he was German.
He was born in Germany, but Freed always said that
he was of Hungarian Jewish descent. But that just doesn't
(06:03):
appear to be true like ancestry 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
(06:25):
Carl Wilhelm. But when he traveled to Mexico in the
late 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. Yeah. And then
he became a Mexican citizen and married her mother, Matilda Calderon,
(06:48):
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. So, um,
she was born and when someone else I came to
(07:09):
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 bits 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 Freda. It seems that she was different
(07:32):
from her sister's, which she screamed, I mean just like
she dressed in men's suits and things like that. She's
definitely different than her sister's. 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,
(07:55):
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,
(08:19):
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
(08:41):
women in here. Yeah, and then she wanted to be
a doctor. Yeah. She excelled in in biology and some
others in Mozana 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
(09:03):
only did she learn about Europe, but she got really
into learning about her indigenous roots. Um. That seems to
be something that fascinated her throughout her life. Yeah, for sure,
was her her European in 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
(09:26):
of her body even 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
(09:47):
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 and pain. She
was alive on the planet for forty seven years and
starting at age six. You say that's when Poli she
(10:08):
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 cuchus,
which means the caps are the hats, which apparently today
is Narco slang for cops into yeah, catchukastchas. It's hard
(10:32):
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
(10:53):
and was for life. That's one thing that they a
lot of people don't realize is free to free to Carlo,
this pop culture icon, this patron saint 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
(11:16):
lousy husband, but he was a great comrade. This is
a great quote. Yeah, so Ine, 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 towards the end of that relationship in
a sec But in two and she was just fifteen.
She was at school, uh, at the preparatory school. And
(11:40):
Diego Rivera, who was very famous artist, a muralist at
the time, already this giant man um like Alfred Molina's
eye 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 like Edward Herman. Sure. Yeah. Um.
(12:02):
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,
(12:23):
years later they would meet and marry and then remarry,
which we'll get into the ins and outs of their relationship,
but it was it was an interesting love story of
sorts artists. You know, should we take a break? All right,
let's take a break and we will talk about the
the tragic events that befell her at the age of eighteen. Okay, Chuck, So,
(13:05):
like you said, something really bad is about to happen
to Frida. She's eighteen. She was on a bus with
a boyfriend who was the leader of the Yeah, and um,
they 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,
(13:25):
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,
(13:46):
everyone was shaking 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. And 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
(14:08):
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
(14:30):
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
(14:52):
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 casts 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
(15:13):
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 was a medical illustrator. Yeah, but in a
exploring anatomy as a metaphor for emotion. Yes, from what
(15:38):
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. Oh yeah, absolutely, up
to this point when when free Callo came along, like
(16:02):
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
(16:22):
showed that that was not the case. It wasn't even
like you shouldn't do this, it was women can't do this.
And she came 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. 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 could imagine, and especially for
(16:46):
the time, it was just off the charts how radical
it was. Right, 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. Right, yes,
so this is that, this 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
(17:07):
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
(17:28):
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 yea and champion her and was
(17:49):
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 it?
To this? Am I an artist? Or is 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
(18:10):
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 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 certainly didn't have to tell you were a
great artist that is below him. I saw a thing.
(18:34):
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.
(18:56):
So he had I just want to get this quote,
and he had a great quote of 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
(19:19):
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,
(19:39):
and she Um. I think the article on her own
website downplays 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
(20:02):
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
(20:23):
go to the place where he was doing. Yeah, exactly.
He can't say, I'm gonna send you a mural, just
tape tape it up, send 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
(20:45):
like in New York and said, I don't know if
she loved Detroit. I don't know if anybody 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 rocket Feller, who in the movie The
Great Movie by Julie Taymore and Samahayak was played by
(21:06):
Edward Norton. Oh yeah, have you not seen that movie? Man?
It's good and once you hear the uh, especially with
the backstory now with the Weinstein stuff coming out, I mean,
this was her passion, Salamahayaks passion project for her life,
and uh, he put her through a living hell. It's horrifying.
(21:26):
I think it was. It might have been a New
York or New York Times had a great article about it.
But um or that she wrote, I think, But um,
I think what got me on that was Edward Norton.
Was he he rewrote the script for Like for Free
because basically one of Harvey's picks 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
(21:47):
work for free. So she got everyone to work for
free or you know scale uh. From Edward Norton to
Julie Tamore, 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 she was bisexual,
so it wasn't like he created this out of thin air,
(22:09):
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 haven't seen it in a minute. Emily's mad that
(22:31):
she's not here right now. I told her about this
last night and she's like, why am I not honest?
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
(22:53):
based movie of all time. Yeah, that's what I saw. Ye.
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
(23:15):
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 it 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,
as a very pointed response to something. And I can't
(23:36):
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 Lenin in there, and um,
Rockefeller was not happy. I mean, I think it was
more of his family. Like he he stayed his friend.
It wasn't like he was like, I hate you your
big poopy bands. Go back to Mexico. But he stopped
(24:00):
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 parentheses up yours Rockefeller. Maybe so,
(24:25):
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 painting. And
(24:46):
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 or something like that.
She's a great publishing magnate um And this was back
(25:07):
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
(25:32):
that right at least somewhere, and who was her friend?
And she commissioned Freda 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 fred
to Callo did. Yeah, I don't know she realized who
she was commissioning fully, like have you seen her work? Right?
So what Freda Calo did was she took this assignment
(25:55):
and and commemorated not Dorothy Hale necessarily, but Dorothy Hails
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
(26:20):
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
(26:41):
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
(27:03):
the freedom 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
(27:25):
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
(27:49):
destroys her, Claire needs is 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 person
reality quite yet. Family is gonna be so mad because
she read her biography and she's probably like, oh, we'll
read page six, right, jerks, and that will explain at all.
(28:09):
Sorry again, Emily, that's right. Do you want to take
a break, Yeah, let's do okay, alright, Chuck. So one
(28:35):
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's just head the two
I think so. Um, but that's all right. Um. She
(28:58):
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?
(29:19):
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
(29:39):
had a pet deer, um all at her at her house. Uh.
We have a great children's book called that I recommend
called Fred 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, with all her work so raw and laid bare. Um.
(30:04):
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 organ blood
vessels connecting her to things. Yeah, it's just um, it's
like you said, you don't have to work hard to
(30:25):
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 of 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.
(30:47):
And this is another huge theme or motif for 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 vertically up the middle of her body,
(31:10):
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 and evisceration and being laid open
(31:31):
in her paintings. Yeah, and uh, eventually she would meet
Andre 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
(31:52):
told me I was one. Really, I do not know
whether my paintings are surrealists or not, but I do
know that they're the Frankist expression of myself. Um. But
she's if you want to classify her 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.
(32:13):
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 influenced. That's a huge thing that really drives
like the visual um impact of her paintings. But as
(32:35):
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
(32:57):
much and and I think Diego Rivera is one who
really incur urged 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.
(33:17):
And most famously captured in maybe her most famous painting,
the Two Frida's in nine nine. It's the double self
portrait that on one side shows her in the more
modern European clothing um, and then on the other side
it's her in her more indigenous Mexican clothing, and both
(33:38):
of them have their hearts exposed. I think on the
European side, the arteries are severed and 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
(33:59):
eye as 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
(34:22):
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
only guess. This's a self portrait in a way of
(34:42):
her in a bathtub from her vantage points, 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 I
don't think I've seen that one. It's really nice. Like
there's a volcano with the Empire State building coming out
of the center of it, with like and grennius lava
flowing over the sides. Because she would get gang green
(35:04):
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
(35:25):
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 gruesome 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
(35:47):
of them and put your nose six inches from it
is is really pretty pretty astounding. Do not sneeze, Do
not sneeze on the art. They have signs everywhere. This article,
our Howstuff 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
(36:11):
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 Frieda like coming out of
(36:31):
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
(36:53):
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
(37:16):
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, although I do
appreciate being having art explained to me by our historians
and people who know, like Sister Wendy, that whole series
(37:36):
from the eighties or nineties, I don't know that. Oh man,
I've told you about before. She's this nun who understands
art better than anybody in the world, and so 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. Yeah, But I think the level
that you and I are at that you were characterizing
is um it was best captured on a Simpsons There
(38:00):
was a museum audio tour that was narrated by Melanie Griffith,
and when they put it on press place, 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, Melanie Griffith level. Uh we we
(38:22):
briefly mentioned Leon Trotsky earlier, the exile Communists and rival
to Stalin Um. They were friends and and they hosted 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
(38:43):
love letters to Diego were published. Yeah, and it's really
interesting their relationship. You know, they divorced in ninety nine,
um remarried the next year. In lived in separate houses.
They both had their infidelity. Is but um a really
interesting complex relationship UM mentor student lovers, friends, rivals as
(39:10):
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
(39:33):
male macho thing going on. I mean, for goodness sakes,
he tried to have his doctor write a note 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
(39:54):
supposedly he his affair with her younger sister, like really
trusted her. 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
(40:14):
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 solo exhibition
and man, she couldn't get around. And this is so
great in the movie. They she wasn't gonna go at all.
(40:36):
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
(40:59):
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 to change things quite a bit. Yeah.
And with her death, she um, it's listed as pulmonary embolism,
(41:22):
but they never did an autopsy in there. It's generally
believed that she committed suicide. 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
(41:43):
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. Yeah. So her when she died,
(42:05):
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 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.
(42:28):
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, which 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
(42:50):
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
(43:11):
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
that it takes a woman who is above fashion too
to flaunt her unibrow, and that that perfectly that that
(43:33):
term above fashion perfectly encapsulates free to call o, which
I thought was a pretty cool thing because the 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 met in every single way inside
(43:57):
and out, and her her leg see in the art world,
especially among among women and female artists, is like the
the one article we read. City just can't overstate the importance.
Nice got anything else? No, I apologize for all the mistakes. Yeah, sorry,
(44:18):
let's do Andy Warhol one. Next. I tried to do
right by this one. Okay, yeah, okay, I apologizing to
Emily specifically, right. Sorry. Uh. If 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
(44:39):
tons of stuff. Go look at our art all over
the web and in person. And since I said that
as time for 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 and correcting you want to fact how ironic, Um,
(45:04):
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 kind of like not not. Um.
I'm starting my own podcast, and it's made me deeply
(45:25):
appreciative of how talented and gifted you guys are as host.
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. 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
(45:47):
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 burn out 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
(46:07):
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?
Who whoa whoa breaking news? Oh yeah, came back to life. No.
I just got an email reply from Shelina and she said,
(46:27):
my podcast is about helping people create a life that
they're happy with. 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 about their journey and what they have done
to create happiness in their life. It's gonna be good. Yeah,
(46:49):
good job. That sounds great. Yeah, hurry up, Shelina, Yeah okay,
best of luck with worth it coming soon to a
podcast distributor near you wherever you find your podcast right
uh And if you want to get in touch with us,
you can tweet to us at s y s K
podcast um. You can also hang out with us on
Facebook at Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know.
(47:10):
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.
Stuff you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
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Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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