Happy Birthday Frida Kahlo

Today is Frida Kahlo’s birthday! She would have been 110 years old today, yet her style is so ‘on trend’ today and we have a couple of her pieces on our walls. Frida is an inspiration to many people around the world, and lots of us probably studied parts of her work as school, although barely scratching the surface of her portfolio.

Its fair to say that Frida led a tormented life; from an early age she showed great academic potential, but sadly, due to a battle with Polio and a traffic accident, she suffered from both physical and mental illnesses, which stopped her from pursuing a promising career in medicine. Along with her health, Frida also battled with social issues such as gender, class and postcolonisation and some people see her work as highly indicative of life in Mexico at the time. Frida came back to painting as a relief from her circumstances and I think that can clearly be seen in some of her work.

Frida was born in Mexico, with a German father and mixed with the likes of Picasso in Paris in the 1930s. Her work is often a mix of portraiture and fantastical surrealism, which has been an inspiration to many in the design world and still is today.

Frida’s work was usually vibrant and bright and she was very inspired by the natural world around her. Some of the botanical styles around today echo her approach, which is probably why we see so much of her work on the walls of mid century boho style homes.

Some people are so inspired by Frida’s work that they’ve created bespoke pieces using how artwork. By transferring elements to a repeat pattern, they were able to create a fabric, such as the examples below.