DESCRIPTION
ANALYSIS
INTERPRETATION
EVALUATION
Artists’ Stories
Fifth Grade
Lesson 7
Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera
Objectives: At the end of the lesson, students will be able to,
1) Tell two interesting facts about Kahlo’s life that impacted her artmaking
2) Describe Kahlo’s approach to self-portraiture
3) Discuss the impact of Kahlo’s life events, including her relationship with
muralist Diego Rivera, on her artwork
Key Questions:
Why do you think this woman is painting in bed?
What kinds of things do you think you would think about and paint if you were
confined to your bed for long periods of time at such a young age?
What do you see here?
Why do you think there are two Fridas? (Are there ever two of you?)
Why do you think their dresses are different?
Why do you think one holds a picture of Diego Rivera, her husband, and the
other holds surgical clamps that control blood flow?
How do you think Kahlo and Rivera felt about the United States at this time?
How do you think their relationship influenced each other’s artwork?
What is different about how Diego used Frida’s image in his artwork and how
Frida used Diego’s image in hers?
What life events do you think Kahlo is reflecting in these self-portraits?
What important life events would you include in your self-portrait?
Can the class guess the event you are including in your self-portrait or is it
more symbolic like Kahlo’s?
Thinking about art that tells an artist’s personal story, why do you think art
that is so personal to the artist can still relate to other people?
The Two
Fridas, 1939
Frida Kahlo
 Born 1907, died 1953
 Had polio and a serious accident early in life.
 Wore only traditional Mexican clothing and elaborate jewelry.
 Married Mexican muralist Diego Rivera in 1929.
 Painted mostly self-portraits because she was the topic she knew best.
 Expressed a lot of disappointment and emotion in her art.
Diego Rivera
 Born 1886, died 1957
 Influenced by the Renaissance muralist Giotto.
 An active member of the Communist party and included politically charged
themes in his murals.
 Married the famous painter Frida Kahlo in 1929.
Creation, 1922
Lesson Cycle
Focus: (5 min.) Show students PowerPoint slide of Kahlo painting in bed with Rivera
looking on (or show short video clip from Frida the movie showing her
painting in bed). Ask students: Why do you think this woman is painting in
bed?
Tell students that today they will be looking at an artist who had a very hard life
physically but discovered painting while recovering in bed from a horrible bus
accident when she was only 18. What kinds of things do you think you would
think about and paint if you were confined to your bed for long periods of time at
such a young age?
Guide the Group: (15 min.) Ask students to look at and discuss several of Kahlo’s
self-portraits. Kahlo said that she painted self-portraits because she knew
herself the best since she was so often alone. Look at The Two Fridas (1939).
Ask students: What do you see here? Why do you think there are two Fridas?
(Are there ever two of you?) Why do you think their dresses are different? Why
do you think one holds a picture of Diego Rivera, her husband, and the other
holds surgical clamps that control blood flow? (encourage students to think
about what it would mean to show two sides of yourself—here for Frida,
showing her married, in love side, dressing in traditional Mexican clothing as
suggested by Diego, and the other more personal side perhaps that is really
what makes her live—makes her blood flow.)
Look at the next slide showing works by Frida and Diego. Ask students to look
carefully at Frida’s Self-Portrait and Rivera’s mural. Tell the story about Rivera’s
mural, as follows. In the early 1930s, Rivera was commissioned to paint a mural
in the US, Man at the Crossroads, in the RCA building (Rockfeller Center) in
New York City. Before being able to complete the fresco, Rockfeller, seeing the
revolutionary connotations within, demanded Rivera take Lenin, the Communist
leader, out of the painting. Communism was considered the number one threat
to democracy and the American way of life in this period. Rivera refused to
censor his work, and the entire fresco was destroyed. Rivera would later
reproduce a smaller version of this fresco in Mexico City.
How do you think Kahlo and Rivera felt about the United States at this time?
(Draw attention to how Frida depicted life on the cultural border between the US
and Mexico—the left side of the painting is organic and spiritual, the right side
industrial and sterile. From the story about Diego’s mural, his beliefs in
Communism as a possible help to the workers was definitely at odds with the
Fifth Grade
Lesson 7, page 2
Capitalist goals of the Rockefellers, so that conflict certainly impacted his
artwork.)
How do you think their relationship influenced each other’s artwork? (Guide
students to notice similarities in style particularly with the plants at the lower
portion of the mural. Also recognize a similar division of the picture plane with
different themes happening in different parts of the paintings. Lastly, point out
how both incorporated and used each other as figures in their works of art.)
Show the next slide to see more of this in Frida’s work. What is different about
how Diego used Frida’s image in his artwork and how Frida used Diego’s image
in hers? (Diego used Frida’s image more as a model just like using his own
likeness in his crowd scenes. Frida’s use of Diego suggests something about
their relationship and her emotional feelings about him)
Independent Practice: (15 min) In pairs, have students look carefully at four more
of Kahlo’s self-portraits. Ask them to write the story of each artwork describing
what they believe was happening in Kahlo’s life during this time. What life
events do you think Kahlo is reflecting in these self-portraits?
After 5 minutes of writing, ask for volunteers to share their stories.
Art Activity: (10 min.) Ask students: What important life events would you include
in your self-portrait? Describe or sketch your self-portrait in detail.
Can the class guess the event you are including in your self-portrait or is it more
symbolic like Kahlo’s?
Closure: (5 min.)
Ask the EVALUATION QUESTION: Thinking about art that tells
an artist’s personal story, why do you think art that is so personal to the artist
can still relate to other people?
Student responses could include that if artists make their work well, even the
most personal stories can feel like they relate to the viewer too. Sometimes
color, composition, and subject matter also help draw the viewer in. But also
some artwork can appeal and feel relevant to the viewer if it has strong
emotional content.
Fifth Grade
Lesson 7, page 3
Lesson Resources
Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera Time Line
December 8, 1886 Diego Rivera’s birthday.
July 6, 1907 Frida Kahlo’s birthday.
1911 Diego moves to Paris from Mexico and is influenced by Cézanne.
1913 Frida is stricken with polio, leaving her with a limp.
1920 Rivera visits Italy to study the murals of Renaissance artist Giotto.
1922 Kahlo enters Mexico's prestigious National Preparatory School
where she has her first encounter with mural artist Diego Rivera. Diego
Rivera paints the Creation mural in the school.
1923 - 30 Diego is a member of the Communist Party. His murals are very
political and he becomes well known for political activism.
1925 Frida is involved in a bus accident and sustains serious injuries to her spine,
pelvis and right leg.
1926 While recovering from the accident, Kahlo begins to paint.
Paints Self Portrait.
.
1929 Kahlo marries Mexican painter Diego Rivera.
1938 Paints Self Portrait with Monkey.
1939 Paints The Two Fridas.
1942 Kahlo began teaching, and her students are known as "Fridos." Numerous
operations force her to leave teaching, and she resumes her prolific painting
career.
1953 Kahlo has her first solo exhibition in Mexico; it's the only exhibition held in
her native country during her lifetime. Also gets a gangrene infection and her
lower right leg has to be amputated.
July 13, 1954 Frida Kahlo dies in her sleep, suspected tranquilizer
overdose.
November 25, 1957 Diego Rivera dies.
Fifth Grade
Lesson 7, page 4
Frida Kahlo was born on July 7, 1910 in Mexico City. At age 6, Frida was stricken with polio, which
caused her right leg to appear much thinner than the other. It was to remain that way permanently.
When Frida entered high school she was full of mischief and continually caused trouble in the
National Preparatory School where she was a student. She got involved with some rebellious boys
and the group pulled many pranks, especially on professors. It was also in the National Preparatory
School that Frida first came in contact with her future husband, the famous Mexican muralist Diego
Rivera. He spent many hours in the school after being commissioned to paint a mural in the school's
auditorium.
When Frida was 18, she was involved in a serious bus accident which left her with a broken spinal
column, a broken collarbone, broken ribs, a broken pelvis, and 11 fractures in her right leg. In
addition, her right foot was dislocated and crushed, and her shoulder was out of joint. For a month,
Frida was forced to stay flat on her back, encased in a plaster cast and enclosed in a boxlike
structure.
She began painting shortly after the accident because she was bored in bed. This became her
lifelong profession. She painted self portraits most often. She once said, "I paint myself because I am
so often alone, because I am the subject I know best."
Although Frida's recovery was miraculous (she regained her ability to walk), she did have relapses of
tremendous pain and fatigue all throughout her life, which caused her to be hospitalized for long
periods of time, bedridden at times, and also caused her to undergo numerous operations.
Undergoing about 30 operations in her lifetime, she would joke that she held the record for the most
operations.
Once she was able to enjoy a social life again after her accident, a friend took her out and introduced
her to the artistic crowd of Mexico. It was then that she was introduced to the artist that painted the
murals in her old school, Diego Rivera. Diego and Frida fell in love and were married on August 21,
1929. They had a turbulent marriage and were divorced in 1940, but the divorce only lasted a year.
Diego was very influential in Frida’s career as an artist. He suggested to Frida that she should begin
wearing the traditional Mexican clothing, which consisted of long, colorful dresses and exotic jewelry.
This, along with Frida's thick, connecting eyebrows, became her trademark. He also loved her work
and was her greatest admirer. Frida, in turn, was Diego's most trusted critic, and the love of his life.
Kahlo met Rivera in 1928 and married him in 1929. She shared his faith in communism and
passionate interest in the indigenous cultures of Mexico. Rivera encouraged Kahlo in her work,
extolling her as authentic, unspoiled and “primitive,” and stressing the Indian aspects of her heritage.
During this period, the fervent embrace of pre-Hispanic Mexican history and culture, gave great value
to native roots. Kahlo, who had Indian blood on her mother’s side, was of Hungarian-Jewish descent
on her father’s.
Although initially a self-taught painter, she was, through her relationship with Rivera, soon traveling in
the most sophisticated artistic circles. During her lifetime, Kahlo did not enjoy the same level of
recognition as the great artists of Mexican muralism, Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros. However, over
the last two decades that has changed and today Kahlo’ s intensely autobiographical work is critically
and monetarily as prized as that of her male peers, sometimes more so.
Frida let out all of her emotions on a canvas. She painted her anger and hurt over her stormy
marriage, inability to have children, and the physical suffering she underwent because of the
accident.
During the same year as her exhibition, Frida had to have her right leg amputated below the knee due
to a gangrene infection. This caused her to become deeply depressed and suicidal. She attempted
suicide a couple of times. On July 13, 1954, Frida died. No official autopsy was done. Suicide is
rumored. Her last words in her diary read "I hope the leaving is joyful and I hope never to return".
Fifth Grade
Lesson 7, page 5
Images
Frida Kahlo
Self Portrait with Monkey (1938)
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/K/kahlo/kahlo_selfmonkey.jpg.html
Self Portrait (1926)
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/K/kahlo/kahlo_self26.jpg.html
The Two Fridas (1939)
http://cgfa.sunsite.dk/stuart/p-stuart16.htm
Diego Rivera
Creation (1922-23)
http://www2.kenyon.edu/depts/mll/spanish/projects/trejo-zacarias/english.htm
Biography
http://www.jlhs.nhusd.k12.ca.us/Classes/Social_Science/Latin_America/Frida%20Kahlo/impacts.html
http://www.udel.edu/eli/rw4/frida/fridabio.html
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2002-10-21-frida-timeline_x.htm
http://frida.filmateria.com/fridafacts.htm
Fifth Grade
Lesson 7, page 6