Frida Kahlo

By Abby Santos

Why Frida Kahlo?

The Two Fridas by Frida Kahlo, 1939

The woman I would invite to Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party would be Frida Kahlo. At The Dinner Party, there is a lack of women that are LGBT and women of color.

Frida Kahlo was a well-known as a Mexican artist who created mostly self portraits. She lived from 1907 to 1954, and got her start in art, and politics, after she was in a dangerous bus accident. Frida’s activism in politics started around 1927, when she joined the Mexican Communist Party. There, she met several other artists and activists. She also met Diego Rivera, her husband, through the Mexican Communist Party. When Kahlo and Rivera started their relationship, Rivera was 42 years old while Kahlo was around half his age.

Frida Kahlo is also a woman who is known for her impact on feminism in society. She broke the gender stereotypes of the time, participating in activities often done by men, dressing in a suit for a family portrait, and accentuating the “masculine” features she had. In many of her self portraits, her monobrow and slight moustache are very clearly shown. However, Frida Kahlo did not stop embracing her femininity, and still depicting herself in dresses and with accessories in her hair. She also was an openly bisexual woman, and she and her husband had affairs during marriage, which made their relationship somewhat unstable. While Kahlo had affairs with men, several of them were also women.

Frida Kahlo is someone who has made life different for women today. One characteristic of some of her paintings that is distinctive is that they showed real experiences, not just women as beautiful objects. Women experience a variety of things, ranging from breastfeeding to miscarriages to abortions. Frida Kahlo showed these subjects in her art, despite it often being seen as forbidden to speak about during her time. Many things that women go through are ignored or are not discussed by society because they are seen as disgusting or sinful.


Place Setting Description

The materials I used were a ceramic plate, floral fabric, fake flowers and leaves, acrylic paints, modge-podge, lace ribbon, red yarn, and paper plates (for the red hearts).

I chose to base the plate's design off of Frida Kahlo's most notable paintings, which is "The Two Fridas." The plate itself contains a division between a section that is blue and a section that is white. The section that is white with lace is a representative of the Frida on the left of the painting, "The Two Fridas." This painting was finished shortly after her divorce with Diego Rivera. This representation of Frida Kahlo in the left of the painting depicts her in a white and lacy European dress. This Frida has a heart that has its blood dripping all over her dress. This is also represented with the red splatters over the plate's white side. This is represented in the plate through red paint and a red paper heart. The heart has a vessel or string that connects to another heart in both the painting and the plate. The blue side of the plate represents the Frida on the right in the painting. This version of Frida is dressed in a Tehuana blue dress. The two hearts and people are connected, but one bleeds.

The runner is made out of a floral fabric. Frida Kahlo often wore floral clothing to embrace her femininity. This is also emphasized using the several flowers surrounding the plate. However, she was a woman who also embraced the parts of her that were seen as "masculine." Her name is spelled out using gold letters. This is because when she had gotten into a bus accident, a painter's packet of powdered gold had broken open, and her body became covered with gold powder.


Finished place setting in classroom, with added blood splatter


Finished plate

Finished runner

Finished place setting viewed from above

Finished plate, with added blood splatter