Frida Kahlo was born on July 6 1907, but she always said she was born on 1910, the year the Mexican revolution started.

Frida Kahlo was born on July 6 1907, but she always said she was born on 1910, the year the Mexican revolution started. If we want to understand Frida as an icon, we first need to consider her biography: a life full of struggle and suffering; her local context in a revolutionary and post-revolutionary Mexico, and the international context with a world full of changes and wars.

The Mexican revolution with it’s major political changes in the country, as well as in it’s values and national culture deeply transformed the lives of the ones who lived in it. Octavio Paz (Mexican Nobel winner) said “…it was the Mexican revolution that reveled Mexico to us. It gave us back our eyes to see it. And it gave them back. And it gave them back above all to the painters, poets and novelists.” So once the armed struggled finished Mexico became a country full of artistic expressions. Frida was the product of the spirit of her time.