Speaker 1: Hi, folks, is Chuck here, and it's Saturday, and that
Speaker 1: means it's time for a select episode that we curate
Speaker 1: by hand and brain and mouth. This one is about
Speaker 1: one of my favorite painters of all time, one of
Speaker 1: my family's favorite painters. My wife Emily loves fred to Carlo,
Speaker 1: my daughter loves Free to Carlo. We have two giant
Speaker 1: hand painted reproductions on canvas of two of our favorite
Speaker 1: Free to Carlos hanging in our sunroom. And one day
Speaker 1: we are finally, finally going to go down to Kasa
Speaker 1: Azul and see where Freda lived and worked, because that
Speaker 1: is on the bucket list and it's going to happen.
Speaker 1: So check out this podcast episode about this iconic genius
Speaker 1: artist of a woman, Free to Carlo Colon painter, icon genius.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry Rowland.
Speaker 1: It's going to be an interesting one because I don't
Speaker 1: know how to say the ladies last name. Jerry's over
Speaker 1: there with her spider monkey on her shoulder, a dead
Speaker 1: hummingbird hanging from her necklace just like any other day.
Speaker 1: We're here in Laasa Azul, right, and she's gotten ahold
Speaker 1: of some eyebrow pencil and filled in between the two
Speaker 1: across the bridge of her nose. So I'm excited about this.
Speaker 1: A because you said Freda Calo before we started recording
Speaker 1: Frida Kayla, and B because you know my family's fascination
Speaker 1: with this woman in her work. No, we've talked about
Speaker 1: it before. That's okay. Though we've done a thousand episodes,
Speaker 1: we have talked about it before. Yeah, okay, well we'll
Speaker 1: get back into it. Yeah, we're way into Frieda. Emily
Speaker 1: is borderline obsessed. Is she a freedom mania? She is?
Speaker 1: And my daughter loves her. You know, there's like Freda
Speaker 1: I hate to use the word, but kind of cults
Speaker 1: devotional groups where um they basically dress up and and
Speaker 1: are like Frieda. It's like channel Frieda Kalo. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: as one of these articles that we source from points
Speaker 1: out near the end um, not only does she draw
Speaker 1: in people for her art, but she draws in feminists,
Speaker 1: and she draws in women who have suffered miscarriages and
Speaker 1: and disabled people who have suffered great pain and chronic
Speaker 1: pain in their life. So she through her life, she's
Speaker 1: able to um touch a lot of people because of
Speaker 1: her life. And I'm sure with any artist where if
Speaker 1: you know, the more you know about the artist, the
Speaker 1: more you can appreciate their art. Sure, with Freda Kalo,
Speaker 1: it's almost like you gotta quit saying that Frieda Kalo
Speaker 1: calo colo my whole life. I've been saying free to Kayla,
Speaker 1: and I like it rolls off the tongue. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: you know, let's give her the due respect. Um the
Speaker 1: when did we start doing that? I don't know? Okay,
Speaker 1: so um, you almost you just almost can't fully appreciate
Speaker 1: any piece of her work without knowing at least the
Speaker 1: basics of her story. I think, well, yeah, and certainly
Speaker 1: once you know the basics, you're like, oh right, that's
Speaker 1: where all this comes from. It really makes sense. But
Speaker 1: she is a great artist, for sure. I was going
Speaker 1: back and looking at some of her art, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm familiar with her, I know a little bit about her, um,
Speaker 1: but I definitely saw some pieces that I didn't realize before.
Speaker 1: And just from researching this, I very much came to
Speaker 1: appreciate her even more. Like she's a great artist. Just
Speaker 1: the technique she used, the imagery she used, the symbolism,
Speaker 1: I really dig it all and it's like you can
Speaker 1: appreciate it because it gives you a visceral reaction, but you,
Speaker 1: the average person can also get what she's feeling or
Speaker 1: what she's saying without being like this means this, and
Speaker 1: that means that she just kind of get it visually.
Speaker 1: It's something that you can get and appreciate pretty easily. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, we've we've seen her work in museums all
Speaker 1: over the world. Basically every new city we go to,
Speaker 1: we see, is there any free to color work there?
Speaker 1: Have you been to Lakasa Zul No? But that'll that's
Speaker 1: that's gonna happen. Oh, I'm sure I was gonna say
Speaker 1: bucket list, but it's just on the list. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to do it when I'm eighty, right
Speaker 1: with with um Jack Nicholson or something. No, Morgan Freeman, No, no, no,
Speaker 1: We're gonna go down there for sure. Alright, So let's
Speaker 1: let's start chronologically. Let's start at the beginning. That makes sense,
Speaker 1: so free to klo Um. She was born back in
Speaker 1: nineteen o seven, although she used to being a revolutionary.
Speaker 1: She used to say that she was born in nineteen ten,
Speaker 1: which was the year of the Mexican Revolution. But she
Speaker 1: was born in a town which was very free to yeah,
Speaker 1: free to call thing to do. Right. Um, she was
Speaker 1: born a town called Koyoa Khan which is outside of
Speaker 1: Mexico City. And she was born in that house, Lacasa
Speaker 1: Zul the Blue House. Yeah. Maybe maybe not there. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of um parts of her early life, like
Speaker 1: the year she was born where other people say, like,
Speaker 1: she's actually born nearby, but she says she was born there,
Speaker 1: so uh, like her birth records indicated different place, but
Speaker 1: it's we'll say she was born there. At the very
Speaker 1: least it was her family's house, right. Oh, and she
Speaker 1: it was. It was in her life for her whole life,
Speaker 1: so much so she actually died in that house. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it's a museum now, yes it is. It's a
Speaker 1: national museum dedicated to Free to Carlo. Pretty cool. We
Speaker 1: can visit, right. So, Um, she was born in nineteen
Speaker 1: o seven, they've figured out, apparently you figured out and
Speaker 1: her father was a German or Hungarian because I saw both. Well,
Speaker 1: here's another little thing where oh boys, he was German.
Speaker 1: He was born in Germany, but Freed always said that
Speaker 1: he was of Hungarian Jewish descent. But that just doesn't
Speaker 1: appear to be true like ancestry genealogy records. So was
Speaker 1: he like German Protestant or something? Uh? German? Um? Uh?
Speaker 1: What Lutheran? Lutheran? I think that's Protestant. I think I
Speaker 1: think so. But I think I think it was Lutheran.
Speaker 1: I can't remember. But his name, depending on it was
Speaker 1: Carl Wilhelm. But when he traveled to Mexico in the
Speaker 1: late eighteen hundreds, he changed his name. He took the translation,
Speaker 1: the Spanish translation was original German name, which would have
Speaker 1: been Guillermo. Apparently it's a great name. Yeah. And then
Speaker 1: he became a Mexican citizen and married her mother, Matilda Calderon,
Speaker 1: who was um American Indian in Spanish. Yeah, and we
Speaker 1: should say Frieda. Frieda's full name is Magdalena Carmen Frieda Calo.
Speaker 1: He called her own great name. It is really there's
Speaker 1: a lot to it there. Basically gives you everything you want. Right. So, um,
Speaker 1: she was born and when someone else I came to
Speaker 1: admire from researching her as her father. He seemed to
Speaker 1: have been a pretty cool cat. He was a really
Speaker 1: good dad. Her mom was a little bits religiously hysterical
Speaker 1: I think, and very strict, but her dad was a
Speaker 1: bit of a foil in that he raised Frieda. He
Speaker 1: noticed something in Freda. It seems that she was different
Speaker 1: from her sister's, which she screamed, I mean just like
Speaker 1: she dressed in men's suits and things like that. She's
Speaker 1: definitely different than her sister's. But he saw in her
Speaker 1: something very much different than her sisters, not just in
Speaker 1: her outward behavior. And so he kind of plucked her
Speaker 1: out of the path that his sisters were on, which was,
Speaker 1: you know, go get married, or go being educated into convent,
Speaker 1: Go get married, go be a wife, and said, you
Speaker 1: you're going to go a different path. Let's get you
Speaker 1: in a different school here. Yeah. He was a photographer,
Speaker 1: so her first experiences with art were accompanying him on
Speaker 1: photo shoots and being in the studio with him. And
Speaker 1: like you said, he sent her to the German College
Speaker 1: in Mexico City, where she was introduced to European things,
Speaker 1: and um, very sadly, she was sexually abused there, uh,
Speaker 1: and then ended up going to and I think was
Speaker 1: one of the first, one of only thirty five girls,
Speaker 1: young girls to go to the National Preparatory School in
Speaker 1: Mexico because that was right around the time in the
Speaker 1: Mexican Revolution. He said, maybe we should start letting young
Speaker 1: women in here. Yeah, and then she wanted to be
Speaker 1: a doctor. Yeah. She excelled in in biology and some
Speaker 1: others in Mozana path to become a doctor. Actually, but
Speaker 1: one of the other things that she discovered at the
Speaker 1: UM the Preparatory Academy of Mexico City was a real
Speaker 1: zeal for the Mexican revolutionary spirit. Yeah. I mean not
Speaker 1: only did she learn about Europe, but she got really
Speaker 1: into learning about her indigenous roots. Um. That seems to
Speaker 1: be something that fascinated her throughout her life. Yeah, for sure,
Speaker 1: was her her European in her Mexican roots and how
Speaker 1: they combined in her and she explored them outwardly as well.
Speaker 1: She even had a painting called roots. Oh yeah, kind
Speaker 1: of on the nose, uh and roots were growing out
Speaker 1: of her body even um we we kind of skipped
Speaker 1: over one very important thing in her life. When she
Speaker 1: was six, Um, she contracted polio and long recovery permanently
Speaker 1: damaged one of her legs. She had a very one
Speaker 1: of her legs was I think her right leg was
Speaker 1: smaller and just very skinny, a little withered. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: she had a permanent limp from that age, which was
Speaker 1: a big deal. It was just the beginning of a
Speaker 1: lifetime of pretty horrendous um physical disabilities and pain. She
Speaker 1: was alive on the planet for forty seven years and
Speaker 1: starting at age six. You say that's when Poli she
Speaker 1: that's when it began, at the at the at the latest.
Speaker 1: It started at six and continued all the way up
Speaker 1: to forty seven when she died. So at the in
Speaker 1: this kind of revolutionary group that she joined, um the cuchus,
Speaker 1: which means the caps are the hats, which apparently today
Speaker 1: is Narco slang for cops into yeah, catchukastchas. It's hard
Speaker 1: to say yeah because of the two. Is it's like
Speaker 1: Jason's coming or something. Um. She she fell in love
Speaker 1: with kind of the leader of that group, but really
Speaker 1: like she found herself as a revolutionary, right and not
Speaker 1: just a Mexican revolutionary. She also became a communist ideologist
Speaker 1: and was for life. That's one thing that they a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't realize is free to free to Carlo,
Speaker 1: this pop culture icon, this patron saint of of women,
Speaker 1: um and feminists, was also very much a fervent communist. Actually,
Speaker 1: she referred to her husband later, Diego Rivera, who you're
Speaker 1: about to mention um as nobody's husband. He was a
Speaker 1: lousy husband, but he was a great comrade. This is
Speaker 1: a great quote. Yeah, so Ine, that's when she fell
Speaker 1: in love with Alejandro Gomez Eddias and uh they were
Speaker 1: together for about five years. And we'll get to kind
Speaker 1: of what happened towards the end of that relationship in
Speaker 1: a sec But in two and she was just fifteen.
Speaker 1: She was at school, uh, at the preparatory school. And
Speaker 1: Diego Rivera, who was very famous artist, a muralist at
Speaker 1: the time, already this giant man um like Alfred Molina's
Speaker 1: eye that's who played him, Um, even bigger, I think. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He was huge. Uh and you know, just tall and
Speaker 1: rotund and just a big personality and everything like Edward Herman. Sure. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: He was painting a mural at her school called Creation
Speaker 1: when she was just fifteen, and she would go out
Speaker 1: there and just basically kind of stare at him and
Speaker 1: while he was doing his work and sort of became
Speaker 1: infatuated with him and the art. I get the picture
Speaker 1: that it was all sort of intertwined, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: years later they would meet and marry and then remarry,
Speaker 1: which we'll get into the ins and outs of their relationship,
Speaker 1: but it was it was an interesting love story of
Speaker 1: sorts artists. You know, should we take a break? All right,
Speaker 1: let's take a break and we will talk about the
Speaker 1: the tragic events that befell her at the age of eighteen. Okay, Chuck, So,
Speaker 1: like you said, something really bad is about to happen
Speaker 1: to Frida. She's eighteen. She was on a bus with
Speaker 1: a boyfriend who was the leader of the Yeah, and um,
Speaker 1: they the bus was struck by a trolley or vice versa.
Speaker 1: She was on a trolley struck by a bus, one
Speaker 1: of the two in either way. It was a bad,
Speaker 1: bad scene for her. Yeah, she was impaled by one
Speaker 1: of the handlebars. It went through pelvis into her womb,
Speaker 1: that's how I saw it. Put broke her spine. Um,
Speaker 1: she was in a bad way, and supposedly her boyfriend
Speaker 1: walked away unharmed, which just makes it even worse. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the way I got it was that, you know,
Speaker 1: everyone was shaking up pretty bad, but it was this
Speaker 1: sort of freak thing that this rail impaled her hip
Speaker 1: that that she got the worst of it. And this
Speaker 1: would go on to be, in my opinion, the most
Speaker 1: significant event of her entire life, because it would it
Speaker 1: changed everything. It changed the course of everything. Remember, up
Speaker 1: to this point, she's planning on becoming a doctor. UM,
Speaker 1: and she was so laid up for so long and
Speaker 1: so immobilized that she basically said, well, there goes my
Speaker 1: chance of being a doctor. I'm not going to be
Speaker 1: able to catch up. I'm not gonna be able to move.
Speaker 1: Who knows if I'll be able to walk again. Um,
Speaker 1: And it just shifted direction. Plus that whole womb thing
Speaker 1: is going to come into play later on and that
Speaker 1: will definitely influence her art for sure too. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: she's um, she's bedridden for months. I think she had
Speaker 1: something like thirteen or fifteen surgeries from that point on
Speaker 1: for the next like thirty years. UM. And it turns
Speaker 1: out that she was a great painter, which must have
Speaker 1: been something to be like, well, I'm in this hospital
Speaker 1: bed that they're equipping me with this special easel that
Speaker 1: I can use in my full body casts lying down.
Speaker 1: They're gonna put a mirror on on the ceiling above
Speaker 1: me so I can be my own model. And she
Speaker 1: was very much known for her self portraits. And she
Speaker 1: starts painting and is amazingly talented. Yeah, And at first
Speaker 1: she she was saying, Okay, well, I can't be a doctor,
Speaker 1: and apparently I have this knack for painting. Maybe I'll
Speaker 1: be a medical illustrator. And once you hear that, when
Speaker 1: you see some of her work, you're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: she basically was a medical illustrator. Yeah, but in a
Speaker 1: exploring anatomy as a metaphor for emotion. Yes, from what
Speaker 1: I understand, right, Yeah, I mean I don't know, I
Speaker 1: mean this might be hyperbolic to say this, but I
Speaker 1: don't know if any artists that poured herself out on
Speaker 1: the canvas as much as she did. Certainly not up
Speaker 1: to the point, especially female artists. Oh yeah, absolutely, up
Speaker 1: to this point when when free Callo came along, like
Speaker 1: women were if you were emotional, you were hysterical one.
Speaker 1: But you certainly weren't if you were a woman artist,
Speaker 1: you certainly weren't expected to explore emotions and grief and
Speaker 1: personhood and the self. And you certainly weren't expected to
Speaker 1: do it in your paintings, And she said her works
Speaker 1: showed that that was not the case. It wasn't even
Speaker 1: like you shouldn't do this, it was women can't do this.
Speaker 1: And she came along and said, and actually we can,
Speaker 1: because I'm living proof. Yeah. And if you're a man,
Speaker 1: you're just a brooding artist. If you're a woman, you're hysterical. Um,
Speaker 1: you're depressed. And she just man, she laid it out
Speaker 1: there as raw as you could imagine, and especially for
Speaker 1: the time, it was just off the charts how radical
Speaker 1: it was. Right, so so, and she's able to do
Speaker 1: this because her family set up a special easel in
Speaker 1: a mirror for her to be her own model. Right, yes,
Speaker 1: so this is that, this big thing like this is
Speaker 1: starting to come along and she she um passes the
Speaker 1: time while she's recuperating doing this, and she recovers enough
Speaker 1: that she goes back to school and starts hanging out
Speaker 1: with her old friends again, and from that re entry
Speaker 1: back into the revolutionary slash communist world in Mexico at
Speaker 1: the time, she ended up in the orbit of Diego
Speaker 1: Rivera again. Actually they ran across each other at a party. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this was it. Man. From that point forward, they
Speaker 1: would be um. They would be tied to one another
Speaker 1: through their work and through their multiple marriages to one another. Uh.
Speaker 1: She was twenty two, he was twenty years older than her. Uh.
Speaker 1: And he very much um he may he very much
Speaker 1: encouraged her early on yea and champion her and was
Speaker 1: her mentors and artists. Was. She went up to him
Speaker 1: at at this party and said, I want you to
Speaker 1: look at my work and tell me should I pursue it?
Speaker 1: To this? Am I an artist? Or is just nothing?
Speaker 1: And he looked at her work and he said, you
Speaker 1: were an artist? This is astounding, Like do you have
Speaker 1: what it takes? And you should keep pursuing being an
Speaker 1: artist in as a matter of fact, let's get married. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean he was attracted to her, but um, I
Speaker 1: haven't seen anything that that led me to believe that
Speaker 1: any of his support of her work was not genuine.
Speaker 1: And because he wanted to get her in the sack. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: he wasn't that kind of guy. He would get anybody
Speaker 1: in the sack. He certainly didn't have to marry you,
Speaker 1: and he certainly didn't have to tell you were a
Speaker 1: great artist that is below him. I saw a thing.
Speaker 1: They both had multiple affairs. We'll talk about that throughout
Speaker 1: their marriage, and you know, maybe or maybe not so
Speaker 1: understanding of each other doing so. Um, but I saw
Speaker 1: one point that he supposedly got his doctor to write
Speaker 1: a note that said that he was physically incapable of
Speaker 1: being faithful. Really, I don't know if that's true or not.
Speaker 1: So he had I just want to get this quote,
Speaker 1: and he had a great quote of about her um
Speaker 1: as an artist. He said that she was a realist
Speaker 1: as far as her arts concerned. She was quote the
Speaker 1: first woman in the history of art to treat with
Speaker 1: absolute and uncompromising honesty. One might even say cruelty those
Speaker 1: general and specific themes which exclusively affect women. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: that's those are pretty strong words from a renowned artist
Speaker 1: who I mean, Diego Rivera was well renowned by this
Speaker 1: time already, So when he looked at her art and
Speaker 1: had things like that to say about it, it really
Speaker 1: meant something. She was. If she ever was an outsider artist,
Speaker 1: she wasn't anymore. She was a genuine artist. She'd been
Speaker 1: decreed as such by the cream of the crop. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and she Um. I think the article on her own
Speaker 1: website downplays a little bit her successes during her life.
Speaker 1: It's certainly nothing compared to what she got many many
Speaker 1: years later, decades later after her death. Um, they weren't
Speaker 1: freedom maniacs back then, but she wasn't. She also was
Speaker 1: not just completely unknown as an artist. I mean, she
Speaker 1: got some notoriety during her life. She got to know Picasso,
Speaker 1: she got to know I mean, these were the circles
Speaker 1: she traveled in, partially because of Diego Rivera. But um,
Speaker 1: they started moving around, you know, starting in the nineteen thirties. Uh,
Speaker 1: they didn't stay in Mexico. They lived in San Francisco
Speaker 1: for a little while, uh, depending on where the work was.
Speaker 1: Because he was a muralist, right, so he had to
Speaker 1: go to the place where he was doing. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: He can't say, I'm gonna send you a mural, just
Speaker 1: tape tape it up, send me a wall. And he
Speaker 1: had her in tow which I get the impression like
Speaker 1: sometimes she was a willing accomplice and other times she
Speaker 1: was very much homesick for Mexico. Yeah, she for sure
Speaker 1: miss Mexico. I know she did enjoy her time in
Speaker 1: like in New York and said, I don't know if
Speaker 1: she loved Detroit. I don't know if anybody didn't. They
Speaker 1: moved to Detroit while he worked for the Detroit Institute
Speaker 1: for the Arts, but very famously in the nineteen thirties
Speaker 1: they lived in New York City when Diego Rivero was
Speaker 1: commissioned by Nelson rocket Feller, who in the movie The
Speaker 1: Great Movie by Julie Taymore and Samahayak was played by
Speaker 1: Edward Norton. Oh yeah, have you not seen that movie? Man?
Speaker 1: It's good and once you hear the uh, especially with
Speaker 1: the backstory now with the Weinstein stuff coming out, I mean,
Speaker 1: this was her passion, Salamahayaks passion project for her life,
Speaker 1: and uh, he put her through a living hell. It's horrifying.
Speaker 1: I think it was. It might have been a New
Speaker 1: York or New York Times had a great article about it.
Speaker 1: But um or that she wrote, I think, But um,
Speaker 1: I think what got me on that was Edward Norton.
Speaker 1: Was he he rewrote the script for Like for Free
Speaker 1: because basically one of Harvey's picks things was like, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna give you any money for this, Like you
Speaker 1: gotta do it for almost nothing. Everyone's gonna have to
Speaker 1: work for free. So she got everyone to work for
Speaker 1: free or you know scale uh. From Edward Norton to
Speaker 1: Julie Tamore, the great director and um, he he demanded
Speaker 1: a lesbian sex scene, like literally was like, I'm not
Speaker 1: doing this unless you do that. And she was bisexual,
Speaker 1: so it wasn't like he created this out of thin air,
Speaker 1: but he's like, I want to see this on screen. Um.
Speaker 1: She supposedly had affairs with George O'Keefe and Josephine Baker
Speaker 1: and all these famous female performers and artists, but she
Speaker 1: did not do that. I think she. I think she
Speaker 1: had a kissing scene with Ashley Judd at a party.
Speaker 1: Who is actually Judd supposed to be? I can't remember.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it in a minute. Emily's mad that
Speaker 1: she's not here right now. I told her about this
Speaker 1: last night and she's like, why am I not honest?
Speaker 1: Like we don't have guests. She's like, I'm a guest
Speaker 1: on Movie Crush. I was like, well that's a different
Speaker 1: podcast altogether. Yeah, Um, she will pick this apart, trust me.
Speaker 1: But anyway, she had a devil of a time getting
Speaker 1: that movie made. Uh, and it went on to great
Speaker 1: success and I think still is the highest grossing art
Speaker 1: based movie of all time. Yeah, that's what I saw. Ye.
Speaker 1: So anyway, they were in New York City because Nelson Rockefeller,
Speaker 1: displayed Byward Norton, had commissioned Diego Rivera to paint a
Speaker 1: mural at Rockefeller Center called Man at the Crossroads. And
Speaker 1: in it it was one of these big um almost
Speaker 1: looked like a Sergeant Pepper's cover, you know, people all
Speaker 1: over the place. And um, he snuck in Vladimir Lenin
Speaker 1: in the painting. So I have a question about that.
Speaker 1: Did he sneak it in it was caught or was
Speaker 1: he like And also, by the way, I've included this
Speaker 1: great man Lenin. He snuck it in um as a response, uh,
Speaker 1: as a very pointed response to something. And I can't
Speaker 1: remember exactly what it was, but it wasn't originally in
Speaker 1: the plan and I don't know if it was in
Speaker 1: the original sketch. I might be getting this slightly wrong,
Speaker 1: but at any rate, he got Lenin in there, and um,
Speaker 1: Rockefeller was not happy. I mean, I think it was
Speaker 1: more of his family. Like he he stayed his friend.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like he was like, I hate you your
Speaker 1: big poopy bands. Go back to Mexico. But he stopped
Speaker 1: the work. That painting was mural, was removed and destroyed.
Speaker 1: But eventually was it destroyed. Yeah, man, pretty sad. But
Speaker 1: eventually um Rivera recreated that a little smaller in Mexico
Speaker 1: City and changed the title to Man Controller of the
Speaker 1: Universe and then in parentheses up yours Rockefeller. Maybe so,
Speaker 1: but that just sort of puts a button on them.
Speaker 1: Moving kind of all around the United States for a while.
Speaker 1: And this is when she was being introduced to high
Speaker 1: society and and uh everyone from like I said, Josephine
Speaker 1: Baker too, to Trotsky and she was she was working
Speaker 1: at the time to write It's what. It wasn't like
Speaker 1: she was just hanging out. She was still painting. And
Speaker 1: one of the paintings she um did was um the
Speaker 1: Suicide of Dorothy Hale. Yeah, that was interesting. So she
Speaker 1: was commissioned by Claire loose Booth little Deuce Coope. She
Speaker 1: was the she was from the publishing family of Time.
Speaker 1: I think she published Vanity Fair or something like that.
Speaker 1: She's a great publishing magnate um And this was back
Speaker 1: in the thirties, and she was friends with Dorothy Hale,
Speaker 1: who was a an actress, a well known actress who
Speaker 1: had hit on hard times financially and was having to
Speaker 1: live on the um generosity of her friends. And she
Speaker 1: climbed up to the highest point of the high rise
Speaker 1: that she lived off of inn jumped to her death
Speaker 1: and devastated Claire booth Loose and I hope I get
Speaker 1: that right at least somewhere, and who was her friend?
Speaker 1: And she commissioned Freda Calo to Um to do a
Speaker 1: painting which she thought this would be a portrait to
Speaker 1: commemorate my friend Dorothy. That's not at all what fred
Speaker 1: to Callo did. Yeah, I don't know she realized who
Speaker 1: she was commissioning fully, like have you seen her work? Right?
Speaker 1: So what Freda Calo did was she took this assignment
Speaker 1: and and commemorated not Dorothy Hale necessarily, but Dorothy Hails
Speaker 1: death by suicide. It's it's almost like a step by
Speaker 1: step diagram. It shows her at the top of the
Speaker 1: building in mid air, and then in the foreground. Largest
Speaker 1: of all is her broken, bloody body on the ground,
Speaker 1: but it has this very somber um text caption basically
Speaker 1: across the bottom in a scroll that explains what this
Speaker 1: is and that's how sad this is um and that
Speaker 1: it was the suicide of Dorothy Hale and so um.
Speaker 1: Apparently when Claire Uh booth Loose got got this, she
Speaker 1: unwrapped it and was like, what is this gag? And
Speaker 1: she was going to destroy it, and friends talked her
Speaker 1: out of it. So it's still in existence today. From
Speaker 1: what I understand, I think the booth or Loose family
Speaker 1: has has the uh the painting in their possession now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's uh just emblematic of Frieda's outlook, which was
Speaker 1: like she was no bs. She's like, I'm gonna show
Speaker 1: you what's real. So let me ask you this. You're
Speaker 1: the freedom expert here between the two of us. Was
Speaker 1: she doing that like like I'm all in your face, Claire,
Speaker 1: this is the reality of your friend's suicide or was
Speaker 1: it she this is this was her expression of emotion
Speaker 1: that she thought Claire, I'm not saying her last two names,
Speaker 1: would would would kind of vibe on and like this
Speaker 1: would be the greatest commemoration of her friend, which one. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't think it was all in your face. I
Speaker 1: think she thought that was the honesty. I think she
Speaker 1: thought that was the most honest work. But I'm not
Speaker 1: sure whether or not she considered like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: is she gonna hate this? Okay? So she wasn't like,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter she hates it. This is the this
Speaker 1: is the most honest work. So even if this psychologically
Speaker 1: destroys her, Claire needs is tough enough. I'm very curious.
Speaker 1: That's a good question. I don't know. I understand a
Speaker 1: lot of the symbolism and her paintings now, but I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily I haven't hit upon her motivation or person
Speaker 1: reality quite yet. Family is gonna be so mad because
Speaker 1: she read her biography and she's probably like, oh, we'll
Speaker 1: read page six, right, jerks, and that will explain at all.
Speaker 1: Sorry again, Emily, that's right. Do you want to take
Speaker 1: a break, Yeah, let's do okay, alright, Chuck. So one
Speaker 1: other thing, very big thing happened to her in Detroit,
Speaker 1: actually um, and she has a painting that commemorates it,
Speaker 1: called henry Ford Hospital. She had her second miscarriage, and
Speaker 1: this her miscarriages. I believe she's just head the two
Speaker 1: I think so. Um, but that's all right. Um. She
Speaker 1: those would affect and influence her work for the rest
Speaker 1: of her life. They deeply impacted her, and not just
Speaker 1: emotionally impacted her. But they were themed she explored, you know,
Speaker 1: like can you still be a mother to other things
Speaker 1: even if you don't bear your own children? Can you? Um?
Speaker 1: You know, like like how does it affect your femininity?
Speaker 1: That's it's it's a theme that really affected her and
Speaker 1: she explored, and it really is just right there in
Speaker 1: broad bold colors in henry Ford Hospital. Yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: she she very famously had was a mother too many animals.
Speaker 1: She had spider monkeys, she had dogs, cats, birds, she
Speaker 1: had a pet deer, um all at her at her house. Uh.
Speaker 1: We have a great children's book called that I recommend
Speaker 1: called Fred to Calla and her animalitos. Uh. That's really
Speaker 1: really fun for kids, but um and adults actually, But yeah,
Speaker 1: she really wanted to be a mother and it was
Speaker 1: devastating to her that she couldn't be. Uh. And like
Speaker 1: you said, with all her work so raw and laid bare. Um.
Speaker 1: And I assume most people have seen her work, Like
Speaker 1: we'll talk about some of it a little bit. It
Speaker 1: wouldn't hurt to kind of brush up on these if
Speaker 1: you have a couple of tabs handy while we're talking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but lots of blood, lots of um exposed organ blood
Speaker 1: vessels connecting her to things. Yeah, it's just um, it's
Speaker 1: like you said, you don't have to work hard to
Speaker 1: understand what she's getting at when there's a painting of
Speaker 1: her with her like body cavity split open and like
Speaker 1: a baby bunny where her womb is. Actually, I think
Speaker 1: I just made that part of That's a great idea.
Speaker 1: I like that imagery. It wouldn't surprise me if that
Speaker 1: was one of her paintings. You know. Um, there was
Speaker 1: a lot of pain, physical pain depicted in her paintings.
Speaker 1: And this is another huge theme or motif for whatever
Speaker 1: you want to call it, um to where her the
Speaker 1: physical pain depicted. And again remember she's painting herself almost
Speaker 1: exclusively here. Um her emotional pain is depicted as physical pain,
Speaker 1: so like nails all over her body, or she has
Speaker 1: a huge terror going vertically up the middle of her body,
Speaker 1: and her spine is a doric column that's crumbling. Just
Speaker 1: just physical imagery that it did depict her physical pain too.
Speaker 1: She was always in a lot of pain throughout her
Speaker 1: life physically, but she also suffered a lot of emotional
Speaker 1: and psychic pain as well, and all of it was
Speaker 1: combined as physical pain and evisceration and being laid open
Speaker 1: in her paintings. Yeah, and uh, eventually she would meet
Speaker 1: Andre is it is it Beton or Breton, the father
Speaker 1: of surrealism? Yeah, and he is the one. Uh. She actually, um,
Speaker 1: in a funny way, kind of said she never considered
Speaker 1: herself as surrealist until Andre Breton came to Mexico and
Speaker 1: told me I was one. Really, I do not know
Speaker 1: whether my paintings are surrealists or not, but I do
Speaker 1: know that they're the Frankist expression of myself. Um. But
Speaker 1: she's if you want to classify her art wise, surrealism
Speaker 1: or magic surrealism is uh definitely categories that her A
Speaker 1: lot of her work fits under. So I saw a
Speaker 1: m I mean, we used a lot of sites for this.
Speaker 1: I can't remember which when it came from, but I
Speaker 1: saw a description of her work as um that she
Speaker 1: was an individualist, which means like she was her own thing.
Speaker 1: She may have had influences, and she definitely had Mexican
Speaker 1: indigenous art influenced. That's a huge thing that really drives
Speaker 1: like the visual um impact of her paintings. But as
Speaker 1: far as like schools of art go or movements she was,
Speaker 1: she tapped into primitivism, indigenism, magic realism, surrealism, and um. Again,
Speaker 1: all of it combined to make her an individualist artist. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: you mentioned the her indigenous roots and and she very
Speaker 1: much and and I think Diego Rivera is one who
Speaker 1: really incur urged her to embrace that, and she started
Speaker 1: she kind of I mean, she wore suits and stuff
Speaker 1: sometimes since she was a kid, but she wore more
Speaker 1: European style of clothing when she was younger, and then
Speaker 1: really started wearing more Mexican indigenous stuff. Yeah, really colorful stuff.
Speaker 1: And most famously captured in maybe her most famous painting,
Speaker 1: the Two Frida's in nine nine. It's the double self
Speaker 1: portrait that on one side shows her in the more
Speaker 1: modern European clothing um, and then on the other side
Speaker 1: it's her in her more indigenous Mexican clothing, and both
Speaker 1: of them have their hearts exposed. I think on the
Speaker 1: European side, the arteries are severed and things. On the
Speaker 1: Mexican side, it's intact. The heart is intact, really really pretty.
Speaker 1: It is very pretty. A lot of her work was pretty.
Speaker 1: Some of it sometimes it's like it looks very primitive,
Speaker 1: and then other times they're in some details like the
Speaker 1: eye as of a cat or something like that, You're like, wow,
Speaker 1: that's really it's very like almost photo realistic. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's it's very weird to me how her Um, I
Speaker 1: don't want to say her talent, but her Yeah, her
Speaker 1: visual talents kind of we're applied in some places and
Speaker 1: not not as much in others. And I'm wondering what
Speaker 1: the details were that that made her make those decisions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she included her pets and a lot of her paintings.
Speaker 1: I think fifty five of her paintings featured her pets.
Speaker 1: Um some very famous ones with her her spider, monkeys
Speaker 1: and birds on her shoulder. My favorite one is called
Speaker 1: What the Water Gave Me Um. It's a it's a
Speaker 1: only guess. This's a self portrait in a way of
Speaker 1: her in a bathtub from her vantage points, so you
Speaker 1: just see her her feet and toes sticking out at
Speaker 1: the end of the tub and then the water is
Speaker 1: just full of all kinds of other stuff, Like I
Speaker 1: don't think I've seen that one. It's really nice. Like
Speaker 1: there's a volcano with the Empire State building coming out
Speaker 1: of the center of it, with like and grennius lava
Speaker 1: flowing over the sides. Because she would get gang green
Speaker 1: later in life, just another physical malady, and had one
Speaker 1: of her legs amputated below the knee. Uh. There was
Speaker 1: a dead bird, a one legged bird, um being pierced
Speaker 1: by a tree. There's a nude woman floating next to
Speaker 1: her dress looks like her parents on their wedding day,
Speaker 1: and it's it's all like in the bathtub water um
Speaker 1: with her feet and toes sticking out. One toe of course,
Speaker 1: is is mangled and cracked and bloody. Um. There was
Speaker 1: so much gruesome, so many gruesome aspects to so much
Speaker 1: of her work, but um, it kind of punches you
Speaker 1: in the gut very much like it's. To see these
Speaker 1: things in person is like, especially if you're a fan
Speaker 1: of her work, to actually stand in front of one
Speaker 1: of them and put your nose six inches from it
Speaker 1: is is really pretty pretty astounding. Do not sneeze, Do
Speaker 1: not sneeze on the art. They have signs everywhere. This article,
Speaker 1: our Howstuff Works article points out the Wounded Deer and
Speaker 1: My Birth both in the same paragraph. Here. Those are
Speaker 1: two of my favorites. Actually, my birth is so just
Speaker 1: just twisted, but it's also really simple and straightforward. It's
Speaker 1: her mother, but you assume it's her mother. The sheets
Speaker 1: actually placed over her mother's head, so you never see
Speaker 1: her face, and you also kind of get the impression
Speaker 1: that it could be freed to as well. Um, but
Speaker 1: it's Frieda's head, grown up Frieda like coming out of
Speaker 1: the birth canal, the womb as it were. I feel
Speaker 1: like such like a nineteenth century like white guy calling
Speaker 1: it a womb, you know, but um, yeah, it is graphic,
Speaker 1: but it's also it looks it kind of I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't want to armchair critique it or anything like that.
Speaker 1: I just like that one. Um, and then uh, the
Speaker 1: Wounded Deer I think is awesome too. Yeah, we should
Speaker 1: probably apologize to every art historian and critic. Like when
Speaker 1: it comes to art, I love, and I know you
Speaker 1: do too, love going to museums and you're probably where
Speaker 1: I am, which is I just like what I like, like,
Speaker 1: you know, if it looks nice to me, and nice
Speaker 1: doesn't mean oh that's pretty, but you know, if if
Speaker 1: it touches me in some way, I'm like, I like that. Sure,
Speaker 1: I don't supposed to do. I enjoy reading the placards
Speaker 1: and then understanding a bit more behind it. But I'm
Speaker 1: definitely not some art historian or critic, although I do
Speaker 1: appreciate being having art explained to me by our historians
Speaker 1: and people who know, like Sister Wendy, that whole series
Speaker 1: from the eighties or nineties, I don't know that. Oh man,
Speaker 1: I've told you about before. She's this nun who understands
Speaker 1: art better than anybody in the world, and so like
Speaker 1: a little PBS series for a while where she could
Speaker 1: just explain art and you just wanted to watch the
Speaker 1: next episode so bad. Yeah, But I think the level
Speaker 1: that you and I are at that you were characterizing
Speaker 1: is um it was best captured on a Simpsons There
Speaker 1: was a museum audio tour that was narrated by Melanie Griffith,
Speaker 1: and when they put it on press place, She's like, Oh,
Speaker 1: let's see what's in this room. Oh, this one's nice.
Speaker 1: I like this one. Oh look at that one, what's
Speaker 1: in the next room. That's the level we're at of
Speaker 1: understanding and appreciating art, Melanie Griffith level. Uh we we
Speaker 1: briefly mentioned Leon Trotsky earlier, the exile Communists and rival
Speaker 1: to Stalin Um. They were friends and and they hosted him.
Speaker 1: She and Diego Rivera at the Blue House and supposedly
Speaker 1: had a brief affair um, although other people have questioned
Speaker 1: whether or not was whether or not she really did
Speaker 1: because of I think last year a lot of her
Speaker 1: love letters to Diego were published. Yeah, and it's really
Speaker 1: interesting their relationship. You know, they divorced in ninety nine,
Speaker 1: um remarried the next year. In lived in separate houses.
Speaker 1: They both had their infidelity. Is but um a really
Speaker 1: interesting complex relationship UM mentor student lovers, friends, rivals as
Speaker 1: well in some cases. Uh, but it's hard to obviously
Speaker 1: as an outsider encapsulated on a podcast, but a very
Speaker 1: complex relationship full of respect and admiration on some levels.
Speaker 1: But also uh, he was also that you know, sort
Speaker 1: of of the time in Mexico and America, just that
Speaker 1: male macho thing going on. I mean, for goodness sakes,
Speaker 1: he tried to have his doctor write a note the
Speaker 1: city was physically capable of being faithful. So let's just
Speaker 1: say male dominant complex marriage and relationship. Well, I also
Speaker 1: saw she could kind of, you know, put up with
Speaker 1: his affairs and and she definitely had her own. But
Speaker 1: supposedly he his affair with her younger sister, like really
Speaker 1: trusted her. That was I think led directly to their divorce. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I could see that. Yeah, that was uncool. Yeah, diego, Yeah,
Speaker 1: even with the doctor's note, diego. Yeah. And he died
Speaker 1: just a few years after her, I believe right. I
Speaker 1: don't know when he died, actually, yeah, I think he
Speaker 1: died three years after her. Um. By the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: her health was really declining. She kept having these surgeries,
Speaker 1: kept painting. Nineteen fifty three she had a solo exhibition
Speaker 1: and man, she couldn't get around. And this is so
Speaker 1: great in the movie. They she wasn't gonna go at all.
Speaker 1: And then they brought her in by ambulance, brought in
Speaker 1: a four poster bed and that's where she was in
Speaker 1: the gallery. She was laying in bed like greeting people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she received everyone while she was in bed, bedridden. Pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: And she died a couple of weeks later. I think, actually,
Speaker 1: I think the last time she was seen in public
Speaker 1: she showed up for a protest against the US back
Speaker 1: coup that overthrow overthrew our bends in Guatemala. Yeah, Edward
Speaker 1: Burne's coming back in right into the picture every time. Um.
Speaker 1: And she she died again at age forty seven, man
Speaker 1: after a life of pain, but a very very productive
Speaker 1: life of pain to change things quite a bit. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And with her death, she um, it's listed as pulmonary embolism,
Speaker 1: but they never did an autopsy in there. It's generally
Speaker 1: believed that she committed suicide. How pills her Her personal
Speaker 1: nurse said that she took twelve I think pain killers
Speaker 1: when she knew that her max was seven, and earlier
Speaker 1: that evening she had given Diego an anniversary present a
Speaker 1: month early, which it all kind of adds up in
Speaker 1: the chronic pain. And just you know, this was after polio,
Speaker 1: after gang Green, after amputation, after pneumonia, after the bus accident,
Speaker 1: after the bus accident, so um, yeah, she may have
Speaker 1: just ended it understandably. Yeah. So her when she died,
Speaker 1: like you said, she was you know, fairly well known
Speaker 1: in certain circles in the art world. But when she died,
Speaker 1: her work kind of entered into obscurity for a few
Speaker 1: decades and then yeah, it's well put. And then in
Speaker 1: the late seventies it was rediscovered. Um bye bye. I
Speaker 1: guess nationalists you could call them art nationalists in Mexico.
Speaker 1: And she has been basically a pop icon ever since.
Speaker 1: Once her story was really um established and built and
Speaker 1: her work came back out, she's just never really left
Speaker 1: the art scene since, which is pretty cool, very cool. Uh.
Speaker 1: If she is in a museum near you go check
Speaker 1: it out. Do you want to do you want to
Speaker 1: talk about her famous eyebrow, because I think this this
Speaker 1: article did a really good job of addressing it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so she has she painted herself. She very famously had
Speaker 1: what you would call a unibrow, right, and she would
Speaker 1: paint it a lot. But the article on how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works quotes a um a book by Desmond Morris called
Speaker 1: The Naked Woman a study of the female body, and
Speaker 1: he basically says Desmond Morris says that like women will
Speaker 1: will pluck the their unibrow into nothingness like religiously, and
Speaker 1: that it takes a woman who is above fashion too
Speaker 1: to flaunt her unibrow, and that that perfectly that that
Speaker 1: term above fashion perfectly encapsulates free to call o, which
Speaker 1: I thought was a pretty cool thing because the Desmond
Speaker 1: Morris wasn't talking about free to callo. This article went
Speaker 1: out of its way to go find that and bring
Speaker 1: it in and I think it analyzes her appreciation of
Speaker 1: herself inside and out pretty well. Yeah. I mean, if
Speaker 1: that was one thing that she did on her canvas
Speaker 1: was say this is met in every single way inside
Speaker 1: and out, and her her leg see in the art world,
Speaker 1: especially among among women and female artists, is like the
Speaker 1: the one article we read. City just can't overstate the importance.
Speaker 1: Nice got anything else? No, I apologize for all the mistakes. Yeah, sorry,
Speaker 1: let's do Andy Warhol one. Next. I tried to do
Speaker 1: right by this one. Okay, yeah, okay, I apologizing to
Speaker 1: Emily specifically, right. Sorry. Uh. If you want, if you're
Speaker 1: not Emily and you want to know more about free
Speaker 1: to Call Up, you can search her on our website.
Speaker 1: There's actually a pretty decent little article and then there's
Speaker 1: tons of stuff. Go look at our art all over
Speaker 1: the web and in person. And since I said that
Speaker 1: as time for listener mail, I'm gonna call this mistakes
Speaker 1: in defense of us. Hey, guys, I'm sure you get
Speaker 1: annoyed at the influx of emails you get every time
Speaker 1: you make a mistake on your podcast. At least that's
Speaker 1: what I gleaned from a few recent episodes where you
Speaker 1: anticipate people and correcting you want to fact how ironic, Um,
Speaker 1: I'm writing the counterbalance that you guys do a fantastic job.
Speaker 1: I'm amazed that you were able to cover topics in
Speaker 1: such detail, with such high turnover rate, with how quickly
Speaker 1: produce episodes. I would expect so many more mistakes or
Speaker 1: sloppy work. But not not with you. Excuse me, no,
Speaker 1: not with you. I kind of like not not. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm starting my own podcast, and it's made me deeply
Speaker 1: appreciative of how talented and gifted you guys are as host.
Speaker 1: One day, I hope I'll be as smooth and easy
Speaker 1: going as you are as always. Please keep going with
Speaker 1: your work. You're my favorite podcast. Also want to give
Speaker 1: a shout out, especially to your Trail of Tears episodes.
Speaker 1: I recently went into the archives and listened to those two. Uh,
Speaker 1: you told that story beautifully. I think you really did
Speaker 1: it justice and I would recommend that anyone who hasn't
Speaker 1: listened and go back and listen anyway, seriously, thank you
Speaker 1: for adding something fun to my life. And that great
Speaker 1: name is from uh Shelina Bathala or maybe Batala depending
Speaker 1: on how you burn out uh. And she is the host.
Speaker 1: And I asked her, well, you're a bad plugger of
Speaker 1: your own work because I don't even know what your
Speaker 1: podcast is going to be about, but it's coming soon.
Speaker 1: It's called worth It. Yeah, good title. Yeah, everyone, that
Speaker 1: is how you get your podcast plugged on stuff? That's right?
Speaker 1: Who whoa whoa breaking news? Oh yeah, came back to life. No.
Speaker 1: I just got an email reply from Shelina and she said,
Speaker 1: my podcast is about helping people create a life that
Speaker 1: they're happy with. I think a lot of people feel lost,
Speaker 1: don't feel connected to themselves, or feel scared to do
Speaker 1: what they actually want to do, like pursue a creative
Speaker 1: career or do something that makes far less money. So
Speaker 1: I talked to people who have been there who are
Speaker 1: still there about their journey and what they have done
Speaker 1: to create happiness in their life. It's gonna be good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: good job. That sounds great. Yeah, hurry up, Shelina, Yeah okay,
Speaker 1: best of luck with worth it coming soon to a
Speaker 1: podcast distributor near you wherever you find your podcast right
Speaker 1: uh And if you want to get in touch with us,
Speaker 1: you can tweet to us at s y s K
Speaker 1: podcast um. You can also hang out with us on
Speaker 1: Facebook at Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know.
Speaker 1: You can send us all an email the Stuff podcast
Speaker 1: at how Stuff Works dot com, and there's always joining
Speaker 1: Sutter home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com.
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