The Gratitude of Frida

Frida Kahlo "Self-Portrait with the Portrait of Doctor Farill"  1951  Private Collection

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) is one of Mexico's most well-known artists. She did not start out intending to be an artist. A survivor of childhood polio, she developed an interest in medicine, and when she was old enough to start college she enrolled in a pre-med program. But at age eighteen she was severely injured in a terrible bus accident. She was over a year in recovery and during her convalescence, as a way of diverting herself, she began to paint. Despite her complete lack of artistic training, her work instantly merited interest from the intellectual and artistic circles of Mexico City. At age twenty-two she married the muralist Diego Rivera, whom she had met as a schoolgirl, and who was twenty years her senior. Kahlo once said: "I suffered two grave accidents in my life…One in which a streetcar knocked me down and the other was Diego."

Kahlo never fully recovered physically from the bus accident.She endured more than thirty operations over the course of her lifetime. In 1951 she became gravely ill and Dr. Juan Farill performed a series of seven operations on Kahlo's spine. She remained in the hospital in Mexico City for nine months. In November of that year Frida was finally well enough to paint. Her first painting was this self-portrait which she dedicated to Dr. Farill. This painting (her last signed self-portrait)  is designed in the manner of a Mexican retablo, or devotional painting, with the doctor  in the place of the holy saint, and herself in the place of the saved and grateful petitioner. Kahlo felt enormous gratitude to her doctor, noting in her diary "Dr. Farill saved me."

Gisèle Freund "Dr. Farill and Frida with the Painting"  1951