Frida Kahlo on the alchemy of suffering

When God made Frida Kahlo, He mixed equal parts love and pain with a hint of atheism.

The Mexican artist and feminist icon was only six years old when she contracted polio, causing her right leg to be thinner than her left. By 15, she was an outstanding student and could read and speak three languages. But her life took a wild turn at 18 after a terrible accident left her with multiple bone fractures and a metal rod in her uterus.

This accident plagued Frida with chronic pain throughout her life, forcing her to endure 32 surgeries, some of which didn't go well and had an impact on her fertility.

Frida's obsession with painting self-portraits began the moment she picked up the brush to cope with her pain and immobility. As she lay on the hospital bed for several months, she painted with an adapted easel and used a mirror to paint herself. "I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone," she said, "because I am the person I know best."

The famed artist, revolutionary, and founder of the Mexican Mural Movement, Diego Rivera, would become Frida's second obsession. 

According to some records, she told a friend she wanted to have Diego's baby way before she ever met him while he was commissioned to paint the mural "La Creación" at the once prestigious National Preparatory School—Frida's school. She was only 15.

In 1929, when she was 22 and he was twice her age, they married.

During their early years together, Kahlo followed Rivera, who was at the height of his fame, on his commissions around the United States. They lived in San Francisco for his mural in what was then the San Francisco Stock Exchange. They then went to New York City for Rivera’s show at the Museum of Modern Art, and later moved to Detroit for his commission with the Detroit Institute of Arts. At this time in her life, Frida hadn't made a name for herself in the art world and was still recognized as "Diego Rivera's wife." But a second tragedy would soon change that.

Shortly after their return to Mexico in 1933, Frida would again experience tremendous pain, this time from a broken heart.

She was Diego's fourth wife. His lack of sexual discipline wasn't exactly news to Frida. When she met him, he was still married, had been divorced once, had a mistress, and had four kids with three different women.

Diego was known to be a community penis. The serial cheater had dozens of affairs with models, actresses, and even some of Frida's close friends. But the one that sent Frida over the edge and into her art was his affair with Frida's younger and beloved sister, Cristina.