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1907
Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderon is born on July 6 to Matilde
Calderon y Gonzalez, a Catholic mestiza, and Guillermo Kahlo,
photographer, a Jew of German-Austro-Hungarian descent, in Coyoacan, then
on the outskirts of Mexico City; in later life she celebrated on July 7
1910
The Mexican Revolution breaks out; Kahlo claims it as the year of her
birth
1914
Kahlo contracts polio
1922
The Mexican mural movement begins; the government sponsors murals to be
painted in churches, schools, libraries, public buildings
Kahlo commutes to Mexico City to begin classes at the National Preparatory
School, a state-run postsecondary school; her program of study is designed
with medical school in mind
Kahlo makes the acquaintance of Diego Rjvera who is painting a mural at
her school
1925
Kahlo apprentices with the commercial printer Fernando Fernandez, a friend
of her father's Returning home from school on September 17, Kahlo is in a
bus accident: she sustains a broken pelvic bone, spinal column, and other
severe injuries. During her convalescence, she begins to paint
1926
Paints Self-Portrait wearing a Velvet Dress, the first of many
self-portraits
1927
Joins Young Communist League
1928
Rivera paints Kahlo in his fresco Distribution of Arms at the
Ministry of Education
1929
Six weeks after her twenty-second birthday, Kahlo marries Rivera
Rivera is expelled from the Communist Party after accepting a commission
from the Mexican government
In January, Kahlo and Rivera move to Cuernavaca, where Rivera has a
commission to paint murals for the American ambassador, Dwight W. Morrow,
at the Palace of Cortes
In November, the couple leaves Mexico for a three-year sojourn in the U.S.
They first visit San Francisco, where Kahlo meets photographers Imogen
Cunningham and Edward Weston; art patron Albert Bender; and Dr. Leo
Eloesser, who would become her lifelong friend and medical adviser
1931
In June, Kahlo and Rivera return to Mexico for five months; in November,
they sail to New York. Kahlo's Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera is
shown at the "Sixth Annual Exhibition of the San Francisco Society of
Women Artists" -- the first public showing of her work
On December 22, Rivera's retrospective opens at The Museum of Modern Art,
New York. Kahlo meets Georgia O'Keeffe
1932
In April, Kahlo and Rivera travel to Detroit, where he has a commission
from the Ford Motor Company to paint a mural at the Detroit Institute of
Arts
Early in July, Kahlo miscarries; spends thirteen days in the Henry Ford
Hospital. In September, Kahlo and Lucienne Bloch travel to Mexico, where
Kahlo's mother is ill. Matilde Calder6n y Gonzalez dies on September 14;
Kahlo and Bloch return to Detroit in October
1933
In March, Kahlo and Rivera arrive in New York City, where he has agreed to
paint a mural at Rockefeller Center
On May 9, Rivera's Rockefeller Center commission is rescinded because of
his use of Lenin's portrait. Four days later General Motors cancels his
Chicago World's Fair commission. In June, Rivera accepts a mural
commission for the New Worker's School
In December, they return to Mexico and move into the double house in San
Angel designed for them by Juan O'Gorman
1934
Kahlo undergoes an appendectomy, an abortion, and an operation on her foot
During the summer, the couple separates after Kahlo discovers that Rivera
is having an affair with her sister Cristina
1935
Kahlo moves into an apartment on Avenida Insurgentes in central Mexico
City; in July, she travels to New York with Anita Brenner; by the end of
the year, she returns to the house in San Angel
Kahlo meets sculptor Isamu Noguchi, in Mexico on a Guggenheim Fellowship.
He creates a concrete mural in relief at the newly renovated Mercado
Rodriguez. Kahlo and Noguchi have an affair
1936
The Spanish Civil War breaks out in July; Kahlo and Rivera work on behalf
of the Republicans, raising money for Mexicans fighting against Franco's
forces
Rivera joins the Mexican section of the Trotskyite International Communist
League in September
For two years, Rivera is plagued with eye and kidney problems, which
require hospitalization and extended bed rest
1937
In January, Leon Trotsky arrives in Mexico, where he has been granted
political asylum, largely through Rivera's intervention. He and his wife,
Natalia, live for a time in Kahlo's Blue House, in Coyoacan; Kahlo and
Trotsky become close for a few months
Four of Kahlo's paintings are included in a group exhibition at the
Galeria de Arte at the National Autonomous University of Mexico
1938
In April, poet Andre Breton and his wife, the painter Jacqueline Lamba,
visit Mexico; Rivera, Breton, and Trotsky publish "Toward an
Independent Revolutionary Art" in the Partisan Review
Actor Edward G. Robinson purchases four paintings by Kahlo; this her first
major sale
Kahlo meets Hungarian-born Nickolas Muray, a well-known photographer
visiting Mexico from New York
Kahlo travels to New York in October for her exhibition at the Julien Levy
Gallery; begins an affair with Muray
November 1-15 : Twenty-five of Kahlo's paintings are exhibited at the
Julien Levy Gallery, New York; Andre Breton writes the catalogue preface
1939
Early in the year Rivera resigns from the IV International after
differences with Trotsky; Trotsky and his wife move out of the Blue House
Kahlo sails to France in January; stays with the Bretons in Paris, where
he has promised her a show. After she is hospitalized for a kidney
inflammation, she moves into the apartment of Mary Reynolds, a close
friend of Marcel Duchamp. She meets Kandinsky and Picasso and many in
Breton's Surrealist circle, including Max Ernst, Paul Eluard, Joan Miro,
Yves Tanguy, and Wolfgang Paalen
Marcel Duchamp helps arrange her exhibition, which is called "Mexique." It
opens at the Galerie Renou & Colle on March 10 and includes the work of
photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo and Breton's own collection of Mexican
popular art
On March 25 Kahlo sails to New York; breaks with Muray and returns to
Mexico in April
During the summer, Kahlo and Rivera separate; she moves into the Blue
House
In the autumn, Kahlo suffers from a fungus infection on her hands and
experiences severe pain in her spine; Dr. Juan Farill prescribes bed rest
and traction. Emotional and physical pain drive her to drink copious
quantities of brandy
In December, her divorce from Rivera is finalized
1940
Kahlo's reputation as an artist burgeons; in January, her two largest
canvases, The Two Fridas and the now-lost The Wounded Table,
are included in the "International Exhibition of Surrealism" organized by
Breton and Paalen, at the Galeria de Arte Mexicano; exhibits work in
"Contemporary Mexican Painting and Graphic Art," at the Palace of Fine
Art, San Francisco, and in "Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art," at The
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Kahlo applies for a Guggenheim Foundation
grant; among her supporters are Meyer Schapiro, Duchamp, Breton, Walter
Pach, and Rivera; she does not receive the funding
An unsuccessful attempt is made on Trotsky's life in May by, among others,
the muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros; Rivera, wanted for questioning, goes
into hiding, then travels to San Francisco
On August 20, Trotsky is assassinated; Kahlo's past association with him
and Rivera's public rift provoke the police to hold her for two days'
questioning
Kahlo travels to San Francisco in September to see Dr. Leo Eloesser, who
rejects the Mexican doctors' recommendation for surgery. His tests of
Kahlo reveal a severe kidney infection and anemia. Meets Heinz Berggruen
and begins a brief affair with him; they travel to New York where Kahlo
tries to arrange for another (unrealized) exhibition at the Levy Gallery
Returns to San Francisco; reconciles with Rivera, and on December 8, his
fifty-fourth birthday, they remarry. Kahlo departs for Mexico before the
end of the year
1941
In February, no longer under suspicion, Rivera returns to Mexico, joined
by his California assistant, Emmy Lou Packard; he lives in Coyoacan with
Kahlo, using the San Angel house as a studio
Three months betore Kahlo's thirty-fourth birthday, her father dies; Kahlo
suffers depression which exacerbates her ill health
Kahlo is one of twenty-five artists and intellectuals chosen by the
Ministry of Education to be founders of the Seminar of Mexican Culture
Kahlo is included in the exhibition "Modern Mexican Painters," at the
Institute of Modern Art, Boston
1942
Construction begins on Anahuacalli, a museum to hold Rivera's collection
of Pre-Columbian artifacts; Kahlo raises funds for it by selling her
apartment and by writing to government officials for public support
Kahlo's work is included in two New York exhibitions: "20th-Century
Portraits," at The Museum of Modern Art, and "First Papers of Surrealism,"
sponsored by the Coordinating Council of French Relief Societies
1943
In January, Kahlo is included in "Exhibition by 31 Women," at Peggy
Guggenheim's Art of This Century Gallery, New York
Kahlo joins the faculty of the Education Ministry's School of Painting and
Sculpture known as "La Esmeralda." She remains affiliated as a painting
instructor for a decade, but poor health prevents her from traveling to
Mexico City; she holds classes in her Coyoacan home. Eventually only four
students come regularly: Fanny Rabel, Arturo Garcia Bustos, Guillermo
Monroy, and Arturo Estrada. They become known as "Los Fridos"
1944
Kahlo's physical decline becomes more acute over the next few years; she
undergoes spinal taps, confinement in a series of corsets, and several
radical operations on her back and leg over the next decade
Kahlo begins a diary, which she will keep until her death
She reduces her teaching schedule but remains committed to her students;
over the next few years she finds commissions, apprenticeships, and
exhibitions for Los Fridos
1945
After reading Freud's Moses and Monotheism, Kahlo paints her ideas
about it. During this and the previous year, Lola Alvarez Bravo takes a
series of photographs of Kahlo
1946
The Ministry of Education awards Kahlo the National Prize of Arts and
Sciences
Kahlo begins an affair with a Spanish refugee, which lasts until 1952
In June, Kahlo undergoes a bone-graft operation in New York. She returns
to Mexico in October; large doses of morphine are prescribed for her pain
1947
In March, Rivera is hospitalized with bronchial pneumonia
On July 6, Kahlo turns forty years old (though she celebrates it as her
thirty-seventh birthday)
1948
At Rivera's request, Kahlo reapplies to the Communist Party; her
membership is approved. Rivera is not accepted back until 1954
Rivera has a public two-year affair with actress Maria Felix
1949
Kahlo's "Portrait of Diego" is published as the introduction to his
fifty-year retrospective held at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City
Gangrene is apparent on Kahlo's right foot
1950
During the course of the year, Kahlo has six operations on her spine, her
hospitalization due in part to a severe infection in her bone grafts She
spends most of the year in the hospital; most nights Rivera sleeps in a
room next to hers. When well enough, she paints
1951
Kahlo is confined to a wheelchair; full-time nurses are hired to care for
her and give her injections of pain killers
1952
Kahlo begins a series of still-life paintings; she produces thirteen over
the next two years
1953
Kahlo's first one-person exhibition opens in April, at Lola Alvarez
Bravo's Galeria de Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City
In August, Kahlo's gangrenous right leg is amputated
1954
On July 2, Kahlo and Rivera attend a demonstration protesting the United
States CIA's intervention in Guatemala
Frida Kahlo dies July 13; cause of death is officially reported as
"pulmonary embolism," but suicide is suspected
1955
Rivera is diagnosed with cancer; he marries his art dealer Emma Hurtado.
He puts Anahuacalli and Kahlo's Coyoacan home in trust as public art
museums
1957
Diego Rivera dies of heart failure
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