Frida Kahlo citations (51 citations, Page 2)

Quote of Frida Kahlo, from her letter to Diego Rivera (1944), as cited in The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait; ed. Carlos Fuentes & C. Fuentes; Abrams, Harry N. Inc. 2005
1925 - 1945

“One Sunday, Diego came to the house to see my paintings and critiqued all of them in a very clear manner, and he told me all the possibilities he saw in them. Then I painted two or three things, which are around the house, that to me seem very influenced by him [circa 1928]. They are portraits of thirteen- or fourteen-year-old kids... In 1929, I joined the Communist Party, I got married to Diego, and I had my first abortion. In that year I painted a portrait of Cristina Moya.... and other drawings that Morillo Safa [her main patron] owns. The unfinished [self-]portrait of my first abortion was my first Surrealist painting ['Frida and the Caesarean', she painted in 1929] but not completely. I have it [at home].”

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Frida Kahlo

1950
Source: 1946 - 1953, "Song of herself"; interviews by Olga Campos, Sept. 1950, Chapter 'My Painting', p. 74

“I was fascinated by Papa's studio [he was photographer]. I would help him wash, crop and press photos and afterwards sell them, when we were poor. When I was in Prepa, [following college] they would send me to help my father when he had epileptic attacks. After school I would go to his office, which was downtown, and accompany him everywhere. I would also do my homework there, and he would help me. I remember the fear that Papa's epileptic attacks make me feel. Christina and I would hide under the bed.”

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Frida Kahlo

9 September 1950
Source: 1946 - 1953, "Song of herself"; interviews by Olga Campos, Sept. 1950, Chapter 'My life', p. 63

“I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint.”

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Frida Kahlo

Quoted in Time Magazine, "Mexican Autobiography" (27 April 1953)
1946 - 1953

“Papa painted small landscapes by the river in Coyoacán, and copied sentimental paintings in watercolour and oil. Afterwards, he gave me a little box of paints that belonged to him. Ángel Salas gave me a small book that told me how to prepare the canvases, and I made them smooth, smooth. The courtship with Gómez Arias lasted from 1922 until 1925, when the bus crushed us both. Gómez Arias brought me books on painting and painters from Europe. These were the first books on art that fell into my hands.”

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Frida Kahlo

1950
Source: 1946 - 1953, "Song of herself"; interviews by Olga Campos, Sept. 1950, Chapter 'My Painting', p. 73

“I first met Diego [who became later her husband] while he was painting the amphitheater [at the Escuela National Preparatoria, where Rivera was painting the mural 'La Créación', 1922 -1923] and I would really cherish going to see him paint. Orozco [famous Mexican painter] was also painting [murals] in the Prepa, and I remember one time a group of kids wanted to scratch the paintings of Diego and Orozco... Every day we went for ice cream at a stand opposite the law school... Sometimes Diego himself would pass by, and we would tease him. One day they asked me who I wanted to marry, and I said I would not marry, but I did want to have a child by Diego Rivera.”

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Frida Kahlo

27 October 1950
Source: 1946 - 1953, "Song of herself"; interviews by Olga Campos, Sept. 1950, Chapter 'My life', p. 71

“It's true I'm here, and I'm just as strange as you.”

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Frida Kahlo

This is usually attributed to the Diary of Frida Kahlo, which does not contain the quotation. As explained on the Quote Investigator website http://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/01/28/flawed/, a postcard containing the quotation and a portion of a photo of Frida Kahlo was sent anonymously in 2008 to the PostSecret website, which posted a photo of the postcard, but the probable author was Becky Martin (Rebecca Katherine Martin). The actual quotation is: I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought, there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too. Well, I hope that if you are out there you read this and know that yes, it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you.
Misattributed

“I remember the first time I was sick. I had gone to play with a boy, Luis Léon, and on the patio he threw a wooden log at my foot, and this was the pretext they used at home when my leg began to grow thin. I remember they said that it was a white tumor or paralysis. I missed a lot of school [Frida spent nine months in bed, and and at seven she wore (polio) booties]. I do not remember a lot, but I continued jumping, only not with the right leg anymore. I developed a horrible complex, and I hide my leg. I wore thick wool socks onto the knee, with bandages underneath. This happened when I was seven years old, and my papa and my mama begun to spoil me a lot and to love me more. The foot leaned to the side, and I limped a little. This was during the period when I had my imaginary friend.”

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Frida Kahlo

9 September 1950
Source: 1946 - 1953, "Song of herself"; interviews by Olga Campos, Sept. 1950, Chapter 'My life', p. 65

“His [Diego Rivera's] supposed mythomania is in direct relation to his tremendous imagination. That is to say, he is as much of a liar as the poets or as the children who have not yet been turned into idiots by school or mothers. I have heard him tell all kinds of lies: from the most innocent, to the most complicated stories about people whom his imagination combined in a fantastic situation or actions, always with a great sense of humor and a marvelous critical sense; but I have never heard him say a single stupid or banal lie. Lying, or playing at lying, he unmasks many people, he learns the interior mechanism of others, who are much more ingenuously liars than he, and the most curious thing about the supposed lies of Diego, is that in the long and short of it, those who are involved in the imaginary combination become angry, not because of the lie, but because of the truth contained in the lie, that always comes to the surface.”

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Frida Kahlo

Frida's quote On Diego Rivera, in 'Portrait of Diego' [Retrato de Diego] (22 January 1949), first published in Hoy (Mexico City) and posthumously (17 July 1955) in Novedades (Mexico City): "México en la Cultura"
1946 - 1953

“We [Frida and Diego] moved from the house on Reforma [street] to Coyoacán, and that had an enormous influence on me. How we painted the house and the Mexican furniture, all that influenced my painting a lot. While still on Reforma, I painted a self-portrait [Self-portrait 'Time Flies', 1929] that is owned by Morillo Safa. Once in Coyoacán I began to make paintings with backgrounds and Mexican things in them. I painted the portraits of Hale's sister.... and the one of Diego, which I did not finish [this painting is lost and was never documented before]. Those three paintings, who knows where they are. Mirillo Safa has the third self-portrait [her Self-portrait of 1930], showing me bald and sitting in a cane chair.”

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Frida Kahlo

1950
Source: 1946 - 1953, "Song of herself"; interviews by Olga Campos, Sept. 1950, Chapter 'My Painting', p. 75

“I'll be in Detroit two more weeks. I would like to tell you every thing that happened to me since the last time we saw each other, but most of them are sad and you mustn't know sad things now. After all I shouldn't complain because I have been happy in many ways though. Diego is good to me, and you can't imagine how happy he has been working on the frescoes here. I have been painting a little too and that helped. I thought of you a lot and never forget your wonderful hands and the color of your eyes. I will see you soon. I am sure that in New York I will be much happier. If you still in the hospital when I come back I will bring you flowers.”

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Frida Kahlo

Quote of Kahlo, in her letter to Georgia O'Keeffe, 1 March 1933, from http://www.patronofthearts.com/2015/07/frida-kahlos-letter-to-georgia-okeefe/
1925 - 1945

“José Clemente Orozco [became later a famous Mexican painter as well] and I would travel on the same trolley from Coyoacán to Mexico City, and I would carry his papers. We became pals, and I invited him to the house. I had painted four or five things when he visited, and he gave me a hug and said I had a lot of talent, and he chatted on about the horrors of Diego [Rivera]. There was beginning to be talk about Diego; that he had returned from Russia and was giving talks on on Russian theater and art. I would go to hear him. Afterwards, he began to paint at the Prepa. [Escuela Prepatoria] and later at the Secretaríade Educación. I was studying at the Prepa, but the [bus] accident [in 1925] messed me up.”

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Frida Kahlo

1950
Source: 1946 - 1953, "Song of herself"; interviews by Olga Campos, Sept. 1950, Chapter 'My Painting', pp. 73-74

“I returned to school [after the bus accident], but I felt very sore and had little strength. I took my paintings to Diego [Rivera], and he liked them a lot, most of all the self-portrait. But of the rest he told me that I was influenced by Doctor Atl [a Mexican painter and revolutionary] and by Montenegro, and that I should try to paint whatever I wanted without being influenced by anyone else. That impressed me a lot, and I began to paint that I believed in. Then the friendship and almost courtship with Diego began. I would go to see him paint in the afternoon, and afterwards he would take me home by bus or in a Fordcito – a little Ford that he had – and he would kiss me.”

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Frida Kahlo

1950
Source: 1946 - 1953, "Song of herself"; interviews by Olga Campos, Sept. 1950, Chapter 'My Painting', p. 74

“I am a poor little deer.”

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Frida Kahlo

written line on a photograph she gave Diego. (1946)
In 1946 Frida painted 'The Little Deer', her self-portrait as a wounded stag; her health took an irreversible turn for the worse, then.
1946 - 1953

“Since Trotsky came to Mexico I have understood his error. I was never a Trotskyist.”

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Frida Kahlo

Diary illustration, dated 4 November 1952 https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-anVqMh38CqE/XIGRL_7Xh5I/AAAAAAAABZI/RBlMfOEWc84ndfYcz04bpep1CIQUQD9fQCEwYBhgL/s1600/diario%2Bkahlo1.png https://books.google.it/books?id=D7NXDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT17&lpg=PT17&dq=yo+jamas+fui+trotskista&source=bl&ots=fAdUwosNze&sig=ACfU3U3sERQThGSf1iR0NiwhxZuYJ78Jpg&hl=it&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwig9_znhvPgAhVLzYUKHexiBD4Q6AEwCXoECAQQAQ#v=onepage&q=yo%20jamas%20fui%20trotskista&f=false
1946 - 1953