Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, We're coming to Salt Lake City, Utah, and Phoenix,
Speaker 1: Arizona this fall. Yeah, October, we're gonna be at Salt
Speaker 1: Lake City's Grand Theater and then the next night October
Speaker 1: will be in Phoenix. And we added a second show
Speaker 1: to our Melbourne show, right, that's right, a second earlier
Speaker 1: show in Melbourne. So you can get all the information
Speaker 1: for all of these shows at s y s K
Speaker 1: live dot com. Welcome to Stuff you should know from
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and
Speaker 1: there's Jerry Rowland. This is going to be an interesting
Speaker 1: one because I don't know how to say the ladies.
Speaker 1: Last ning, Jerry's over there with her spider monkey on
Speaker 1: her shoulder, a dead hummingbird hanging from her necklace, just
Speaker 1: like any other day. We're here in Lakasa Azul, right,
Speaker 1: and she's gotten ahold of some eyebrow pencil and filled
Speaker 1: in between the two across the bridge of our nose.
Speaker 1: So I'm excited about this. A because you said frieda
Speaker 1: calo before we started recording freda Kalo, and B because
Speaker 1: you know my family's fascination with this woman in her work. No,
Speaker 1: we've talked about it before. That's okay. Though we've done
Speaker 1: a thousand episodes. We have talked about it before. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: well we'll get back into it. Yeah, we're way into Frieda.
Speaker 1: Emily is borderline obsessed? Is she a freedom maniac? She is?
Speaker 1: And my daughter loves her. You know, there's like Frieda
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 sourced 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 uh
Speaker 1: femineis and she draws in women who have suffered miscarriages
Speaker 1: and and disabled people who have suffered great pain and
Speaker 1: chronic pain in their life. So she through her life
Speaker 1: she's able to um touch a lot of people because
Speaker 1: of her life. And I'm sure with any artist where
Speaker 1: if you know, the more you know about the artist,
Speaker 1: the more you can appreciate their art. With freed to Klo,
Speaker 1: it's almost like you gotta quit saying that Freda Calo Carlo. Carlo,
Speaker 1: my whole life have been saying free to Kyla, and
Speaker 1: I like it rules off the tongue. Yeah, but you know,
Speaker 1: let's give her the due respect. Um the when did
Speaker 1: we start doing that? I don't know. Okay, so um,
Speaker 1: you almost you just almost can't fully appreciate any piece
Speaker 1: of her work without knowing at least the basics of
Speaker 1: her story. I think, well, yeah, and certainly once you
Speaker 1: know the basics, you're like, oh right, that's where all
Speaker 1: this comes from. It really makes sense. But she is
Speaker 1: a great artist, for sure. I was going back and
Speaker 1: looking at some of her art. You know, I'm familiar
Speaker 1: 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,
Speaker 1: No, no no, No, we're gonna go down there for sure. Alright,
Speaker 1: So let's let's start chronologically. Let's start at the beginning.
Speaker 1: That makes sense. So Freeda kalo Um she was born
Speaker 1: back in nineteen o seven, although she used to being
Speaker 1: a revolutionary. She used to say that she was born
Speaker 1: in nineteen ten, which was the year of the Mexican Revolution.
Speaker 1: But she was born in a town which was very
Speaker 1: freed to. Yeah, freed to call thing to do? Right. Um.
Speaker 1: She was born in town called the Koyoa Khan which
Speaker 1: is outside of Mexico City, and she was born in
Speaker 1: that house Lacasa Zul the Blue House. Yeah, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: not there. There's a lot of um parts of her
Speaker 1: early life, like the year she was born where other
Speaker 1: people say, like, man, she's actually born nearby, but she
Speaker 1: says she was born there, so uh, like her birth
Speaker 1: records indicated a different place, but it's we'll say she
Speaker 1: was born there at the very least it was her
Speaker 1: family's house, right, and she it was. It was in
Speaker 1: her life for her whole life, so much so she
Speaker 1: actually died in that house. Yeah. And it's a museum now,
Speaker 1: yes it is. It's a national museum dedicated to free
Speaker 1: to Carlo cret Cool. We can visit, right. So, um,
Speaker 1: she was born in nineteen o seven they've figured out,
Speaker 1: apparently you figured out. And her father was he German
Speaker 1: or Hungarian? Because I saw both. Well, here's another little
Speaker 1: thing where he was German. He was born in Germany,
Speaker 1: but Freed always said that he was of Hungarian Jewish descent,
Speaker 1: but that just doesn't appear to be true like ancestry
Speaker 1: gen genealogy records. So was he like German Protestant or something?
Speaker 1: Uh German? Um? Uh? What Lutheran? Lutheran? I think that's Protestant,
Speaker 1: I think I think so, but I think I think
Speaker 1: it was Lutheran. I can't remember. But his name, depending
Speaker 1: on it was Carl Wilhelm. But when he traveled to
Speaker 1: Mexico and the eight eighteen hundreds, he changed his name.
Speaker 1: He took the translation. The Spanish translation was original German name,
Speaker 1: which would have been Guillermo. Apparently it's a great name,
Speaker 1: will though. Yeah, and then he became a Mexican citizen
Speaker 1: and married her mother, Matilda Calderon, who was um American
Speaker 1: Indian in Spanish. Yeah, and we should say Frieda. Frieda's
Speaker 1: full name is Magdalena Carmen Frieda Calo. He called her
Speaker 1: own great name. It is really there's a lot to
Speaker 1: it there. Basically gives you everything you want, right, that's right.
Speaker 1: So um, she was born in when someone else I
Speaker 1: came to admire from researching her. As her father, he
Speaker 1: seemed to have been a pretty cool cat. He was
Speaker 1: a really good dad. Her mom was a little bit
Speaker 1: religiously hysterical, I think, and very strict, But her dad
Speaker 1: was a bit of a foil in that he raised Frieda.
Speaker 1: He noticed something in freed To It seems that she
Speaker 1: was different from her sisters, which she screamed, I mean
Speaker 1: just like she dressed in men's suits and things like that.
Speaker 1: She was definitely different than her sisters. But he saw
Speaker 1: in her something very much different than her sisters, not
Speaker 1: just in her outward behavior, and so he kind of
Speaker 1: plucked her out of the path that his sisters were on,
Speaker 1: which was, you know, go get married, or go being
Speaker 1: educated into convent, Go get married, go be a wife,
Speaker 1: and said, you you're going to go a different path.
Speaker 1: Let's get you in a different school here. Yeah. He
Speaker 1: was a photographer, so her first experiences with art were
Speaker 1: accompanying him on photo shoots and being in the studio
Speaker 1: with him. And like you said, he sent her to
Speaker 1: the German College in Mexico City, where she was introduced
Speaker 1: to European things, and um, very sadly she was sexually
Speaker 1: abused there. Uh, and then ended up going to and
Speaker 1: I think was one of the first, one of only
Speaker 1: thirty five girls, young girls to go to the National
Speaker 1: Preparatory School in Mexico because that was right around the
Speaker 1: time in the Mexican Revolution. He said, maybe we should
Speaker 1: start letting young women in here. Yeah. And then doctor, Yeah,
Speaker 1: she excelled in in biology and some others and Moz
Speaker 1: on a path to become a doctor actually. But one
Speaker 1: of the other things that she discovered at the UM,
Speaker 1: the Preparatory Academy of Mexico City was a real zeal
Speaker 1: for the Mexican revolutionary spirit. Yeah. I mean, not only
Speaker 1: did she learn about Europe, but she got really into
Speaker 1: learning about her indigenous roots. Yeah. Um, that seems to
Speaker 1: be something that fascinated her throughout her life, was her
Speaker 1: her European and her Mexican roots and how they combined
Speaker 1: in her and she explored them outwardly as well. She
Speaker 1: even had a painting called roots. Oh yeah, kind of
Speaker 1: on the nose, uh and roots were growing out of
Speaker 1: her body even yeah, 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. In pain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she was alive on the planet for forty seven years
Speaker 1: and starting at age six. You say that's when polio,
Speaker 1: She bet, that's when it began, at the at the
Speaker 1: at the latest, it started at six and continued all
Speaker 1: the way up to forty seven when she died. So
Speaker 1: at the in this kind of revolutionary group that she joined, um,
Speaker 1: the cachas, which means the caps are the hats, which
Speaker 1: apparently today is Narco slang for cops. You know, kutchukas cachuchas.
Speaker 1: It's hard to say, yeah, because of the two. Is
Speaker 1: it's like Jason's coming or something. Um. She she fell
Speaker 1: in love with kind of the leader of that group,
Speaker 1: but really like she found herself as a revolutionary, right
Speaker 1: and not just a Mexican revolutionary. She also became a
Speaker 1: communist ideologist and was for life. That's one thing that
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't realize is free to free
Speaker 1: to Carlo, this pop culture icon, this patron saying of
Speaker 1: of women, UM and feminists, was also very much a
Speaker 1: fervent communist. Actually, she referred to her husband later Diego Rivera,
Speaker 1: who you're about to mention um as nobody's husband. He
Speaker 1: was a lousy husband, but he was a great comrade.
Speaker 1: This is a great quote. Yeah. So that's when she
Speaker 1: fell in love with Alejandro Gomez Eddias and uh they
Speaker 1: were together for about five years. And we'll get to
Speaker 1: kind of what happened toward the end of that relationship
Speaker 1: in a sec but Ino 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 size,
Speaker 1: 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. 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
Speaker 1: relation chip, but it was it was an interesting love
Speaker 1: story of sorts. Artists. You know, yeah, should we take
Speaker 1: a break? All right, let's take a break, and we
Speaker 1: will talk about the tragic events that befel her at
Speaker 1: the age of eighteen. Okay, Chuck, So, like you said,
Speaker 1: something really bad is about to happen to Frida. She's eighteen.
Speaker 1: She's on a bus with a boyfriend who was the
Speaker 1: leader of the Yeah, and um, the the bus was
Speaker 1: struck by a trolley, or vice versa. She was on
Speaker 1: a trolley struck by a bus, one of the two
Speaker 1: in either way. It was a bad, bad scene for her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she was impaled by one of the handlebars. It went
Speaker 1: through pelvis into her womb, That's how I saw it.
Speaker 1: Put broke her spine. Um, she was in a bad way.
Speaker 1: And supposedly her boyfriend walked away unharmed, which just makes
Speaker 1: it even worse, you know, Yeah, I mean the way
Speaker 1: I got it was that, you know, everyone was shaken
Speaker 1: up pretty bad. But it was this sort of freak
Speaker 1: thing that this rail impaled her hip that that she
Speaker 1: got the worst of it. Now, this would go on
Speaker 1: to be, in my opinion, the most significant event of
Speaker 1: her entire life, because it would it changed everything. It
Speaker 1: changed the course of everything. Remember, up to this point,
Speaker 1: she's planning on becoming a doctor. Um, and she was
Speaker 1: so laid up for so long and so immobilized that
Speaker 1: she basically said, well, there goes my chance of being
Speaker 1: a doctor. I'm not going to be able to catch up.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna be able to move. Who knows if
Speaker 1: I'll be able to walk again. Um, And it just
Speaker 1: shifted direction. Plus that whole womb thing is going to
Speaker 1: come into play later on and that will definitely influence
Speaker 1: her art for sure too. Yeah. So she's um, she's
Speaker 1: bedridden for months. I think she had something like thirteen
Speaker 1: or fifteen surgeries from that point on for the next
Speaker 1: like thirty years. Um. And it turns out that she
Speaker 1: was a great painter, which must have been something to
Speaker 1: be like, well, I'm in this hospital bed that they're
Speaker 1: equipping me with this special easel that I can use
Speaker 1: in my full body cast lying down. They're gonna put
Speaker 1: a mirror on on the ceiling above me so I
Speaker 1: can be my own model. And she was very much
Speaker 1: known for her self portraits. And she starts painting and
Speaker 1: is amazingly talented. Yeah. And at first she she was saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: well I can't be a doctor, and apparently I have
Speaker 1: this knack for painting. Maybe I'll be a medical illustrator.
Speaker 1: And once you hear that, when you see some of
Speaker 1: her work, you're like, oh, yeah, she basically he was
Speaker 1: a medical illustrator. Yeah, but in a exploring anatomy as
Speaker 1: a metaphor for emotion. Yes, from what I understand, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know. I mean, this might be
Speaker 1: hyperbolic to say this, but I don't know if any
Speaker 1: artists that poured herself out on the canvas as much
Speaker 1: as she did. Certainly not up to the point, especially
Speaker 1: female artists. Yeah, absolutely, up to this point when when
Speaker 1: Frieda Kello came along, like women were if you were emotional,
Speaker 1: you were hysterical one. But you certainly weren't if you
Speaker 1: were a woman artist, you certainly weren't expected to explore
Speaker 1: emotions and grief and personhood and the self, and you
Speaker 1: certainly weren't expected to do it in your paintings. And
Speaker 1: she said her works showed that that was not the case.
Speaker 1: It wasn't even like you shouldn't do this, it was
Speaker 1: women can't do this. She him along and said, and
Speaker 1: actually we can, because I'm living proof. Yeah. And if
Speaker 1: you're a man, you're just a brooding artist. Yeah. If
Speaker 1: you're a woman, you're hysterical. Um, you're depressed. And she
Speaker 1: just man, she laid it out there as raw as
Speaker 1: you can imagine, and especially for the time, it was
Speaker 1: just off the charts, how radical it was so so
Speaker 1: And she's able to do this because her family set
Speaker 1: up a special easel in a mirror for her to
Speaker 1: be her own model. Yes, right, yes, so this is that,
Speaker 1: this is a big thing, like this is starting to
Speaker 1: come along and she she um passes the time while
Speaker 1: she's recuperating doing this, and she recovers enough that she
Speaker 1: goes back to school and starts hanging out with her
Speaker 1: old friends again. And from that re entry back into
Speaker 1: the revolutionary slash communist world in Mexico at the time,
Speaker 1: she ended up in the orbit of Diego Rivera again. Actually,
Speaker 1: they ran across each other at a party. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: this was it. Man. From that point forward, they would
Speaker 1: be um. They would be tied to one another through
Speaker 1: 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 and champion her and was her
Speaker 1: mentors and artists. Was She went up to him at
Speaker 1: at this party and said, I want you to look
Speaker 1: at my work and tell me should I pursue this?
Speaker 1: To see this? Am I an artist? Or is this
Speaker 1: just nothing? And he looked at her work and he said,
Speaker 1: you were an artist. This is astounding, Like do you
Speaker 1: have what it takes? And you should keep pursuing being
Speaker 1: an 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 like 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's said, we didn't have to tell you you
Speaker 1: were a great artist. That is below him. I saw
Speaker 1: a thing. Yeah, they both had multiple affairs. We'll talk
Speaker 1: about that throughout their marriage. And you know, maybe or
Speaker 1: maybe not so understanding of each other doing so. Um,
Speaker 1: but I saw one point that he supposedly got his
Speaker 1: doctor to write a note that said that he was
Speaker 1: physically incapable of being faithful. Really, I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's true or not. So he had I just want
Speaker 1: to get this quote, and he had a great quote
Speaker 1: about her um as an artist. He said that she
Speaker 1: was a realist as far as her arts concerned. She
Speaker 1: was quote the first woman in the history of art
Speaker 1: to treat with absolute and uncompromising honesty. One might even
Speaker 1: say cruelty those general and specific themes which exclusively affect women. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like that's those are pretty strong words from a renowned
Speaker 1: artist who I mean, Diego Rivera was well renowned by
Speaker 1: this time already, So when he looked at her art
Speaker 1: and had things like that to say about it, it
Speaker 1: really meant something. She was. If she ever was an
Speaker 1: outsider artist, she wasn't anymore. She was a genuine artist.
Speaker 1: She'd been 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 down plays 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 that. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: He can't say I'm gonna send you a mural, just
Speaker 1: tape tape it up. S 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 he 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 Rockefeller, who in the movie The Great
Speaker 1: Movie by Julie Taymore and Samahayak was played by Edward Norton.
Speaker 1: Oh really, yeah, have you not seen that movie? Man?
Speaker 1: It's good and once you hear the h especially with
Speaker 1: the backstory now with the Weinstein stuff coming out. I mean,
Speaker 1: this was her passion, Samahaiaks, 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 in New
Speaker 1: York or New York Times had a great iCal 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 rewrote the script for like for free because
Speaker 1: basically one of the Harvey's pick 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 Taymore, 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 uh, 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 wou'd see 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. She's like, why am I not on? It's
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.
Speaker 1: So anyway, they were in New York City because Nelson
Speaker 1: Rockefeller displayed Byward. Norton had commissioned Diego Rivera to paint
Speaker 1: a mural at Rockefeller Center called Man at the Crossroads,
Speaker 1: and in it it was one of these big um
Speaker 1: almost looked like a Sergeant Pepper's cover, you know, people
Speaker 1: all over the place. And Um, he snuck in Vladimir
Speaker 1: Lenin in the painting. So I have a question about that.
Speaker 1: Did he sneak it in and 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: it's 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 linen in there, and
Speaker 1: um Rockefeller was not happy. I mean, I think it
Speaker 1: was more of his family, like he he stayed, his
Speaker 1: friend 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 Universe.
Speaker 1: And then in parenthes he's 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 And one
Speaker 1: of the paintings she um did was UM the Suicide
Speaker 1: of Dorothy Hale. Yeah, that was interesting. So she was
Speaker 1: commissioned by Claire loose Booth little Deuce Coope. She was
Speaker 1: the she was from the publishing family of Time. I
Speaker 1: think she published Vanity Fair something like that. She's a
Speaker 1: great publishing magnate. Um And this was back in the thirties,
Speaker 1: and she was friends with Dorothy Hale, who was a
Speaker 1: an actress, a well known actress who had hit on
Speaker 1: hard times financially and was having to live on the
Speaker 1: um generosity of her friends. And she climbed up to
Speaker 1: the highest point of the high rise that she lived
Speaker 1: off of inn jumped to her death and devastated Claire
Speaker 1: booth Loose and I hope I get that right at
Speaker 1: least somewhere, and who was her friend? And she commissioned
Speaker 1: fred To Calo to Um to do a painting, which
Speaker 1: she thought this would be a portrait to commemorate my
Speaker 1: friend Dorothy. That's not at all what free to Callo did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know she realized who she was commissioning, fully,
Speaker 1: like have you seen her work? Right? So what freed
Speaker 1: to Calo did was she took this assignment and and
Speaker 1: commemorated not Dorothy Hale necessarily, but Dorothy Hail's death by suicide.
Speaker 1: It's it's almost like a step by step diagram. It
Speaker 1: shows her at the top of the building in mid air,
Speaker 1: and then in the foreground. Largest of all is her broken,
Speaker 1: bloody body on the ground. But it has this very
Speaker 1: somber um text caption basically across the bottom in a
Speaker 1: scroll that explains what this is and that's how sad
Speaker 1: this is um and that it was the suicide of
Speaker 1: Dorothy Hale, and so um. Apparently when Claire uh booth
Speaker 1: Loose got got this, she unwrapped it and was like
Speaker 1: what is this gag? And she was going to destroy
Speaker 1: it and friends talked her out of it. So it's
Speaker 1: still in existence today. From what I understand, I think
Speaker 1: the booth or loose family has has the uh the
Speaker 1: painting in their possession now. Yeah, and that's uh just
Speaker 1: emblematic of Frieda's outlook, which was like she was no bs,
Speaker 1: She's like, I'm gonna show you what's real. So let
Speaker 1: me ask you this. You're the Frieda expert here between
Speaker 1: the two of us. Was she doing that like like
Speaker 1: I'm all in your face, Claire, this is the reality
Speaker 1: of your friend's suicide? Or was it she this is
Speaker 1: this was her expression of emotion that she thought Claire,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying her last two names, would would would
Speaker 1: kind of vibe on and like this would be the
Speaker 1: greatest commemoration of her friend. Which one. Well, I don't
Speaker 1: think it was all in your face. I think she
Speaker 1: thought that was the honesty. I think she thought that
Speaker 1: was the most honest work. But I'm not sure whether
Speaker 1: or not she considered like, wait a minute, is she
Speaker 1: gonna hate this? Okay, so she wasn't like it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter she hates it. This is the This is the
Speaker 1: most honest work. So even if this psychologically destroys her,
Speaker 1: Claire needs it tough enough. I'm very curious. That's a
Speaker 1: good question. I don't know. I understand a lot of
Speaker 1: the symbolism and her paintings now, but I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: I haven't hit upon her motivation or personality quite yet.
Speaker 1: Family is gonna be so mad because she read her
Speaker 1: eight page biography and she's probably like, oh, we'll read
Speaker 1: page six, jerks, and that will explain at all. Sorry again, Emily,
Speaker 1: that's right. You want to take a break, Yeah, let's
Speaker 1: do okay, alright, Chuck. So one other thing, very big
Speaker 1: thing happened to her in Detroit, actually, um, and she
Speaker 1: has a painting that commemorates it, called henry Ford Hospital.
Speaker 1: She had her second miscarriage, and this her miscarriages. I
Speaker 1: believe she just head the two. Um. But that's all right. Um.
Speaker 1: She those would affect and influence her work for the
Speaker 1: rest of her life. They deeply impacted her, and not
Speaker 1: just emotionally impacted her. But they were themed, she explored,
Speaker 1: you know, like, can you still be a mother to
Speaker 1: other things even if you don't bear your own children?
Speaker 1: Can you, um, you know, like like how does it
Speaker 1: affect your femininity? That's it's it's a theme that really
Speaker 1: affected her and she explored and it really is just
Speaker 1: right there in broad bold colors in henry Ford Hospital. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean she she very famously had was a mother
Speaker 1: too many animals. She had spider monkeys, she had dogs, cats, birds,
Speaker 1: she had a pet deer um all at her at
Speaker 1: her house. We have a great children's book called that
Speaker 1: I recommend called Free to Calla and her animalitos. Uh
Speaker 1: that's really really fun for kids, but um, and adults actually,
Speaker 1: But yeah, she really wanted to be a mother and
Speaker 1: it was devastating to her that she couldn't be. Uh.
Speaker 1: And like you said, like with all her work so
Speaker 1: raw and laid bare. Um and and I assume most
Speaker 1: people have seen her work. Like we'll talk about some
Speaker 1: of it a little bit. It wouldn't hurt to kind
Speaker 1: of brush up on these if you have a couple
Speaker 1: of tabs handy while we're talking. Yeah, but lots of blood,
Speaker 1: lots of um exposed organs, blood vessels connecting her to things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just um, it's like you said, you don't have
Speaker 1: to work hard to understand what she's getting at when
Speaker 1: there's a painting of her with her like body cavity
Speaker 1: split open and like a baby bunny where her womb is. Actually,
Speaker 1: I think I just made that part. If that's a
Speaker 1: great idea. I like that imagery. It wouldn't surprise me
Speaker 1: if that was one of her paintings, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of pain, physical pain depicted in
Speaker 1: her paintings. And this is another huge theme or motif
Speaker 1: or whatever you want to call it, um to where
Speaker 1: her the physical pain depicted. And again, remember she's painting
Speaker 1: herself almost exclusively here. Um. Her emotional pain is depicted
Speaker 1: as physical pain, so like nails all over her body,
Speaker 1: or she has a huge terror going uh vertically up
Speaker 1: the middle of her body, and her spine is a
Speaker 1: doric column that's crumbling. Just just physical imagery that it
Speaker 1: did depict her physical pain too. She was always in
Speaker 1: a lot of pain throughout her life physically, but she
Speaker 1: also suffered a lot of emotional and psychic pain as well,
Speaker 1: and all of it was combined as physical pain an
Speaker 1: evisceration and being laid open in her paintings. Yeah, and uh,
Speaker 1: eventually she would meet Andre U bet is it? Is
Speaker 1: it Beton or Breton, the father of surrealism. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: he is the one. Uh. She actually um in a
Speaker 1: funny way, kind of said she never considered herself as
Speaker 1: surrealist until Andre Breton came to Mexico and told me
Speaker 1: I was one. Really, I do not know whether my
Speaker 1: paintings are surrealist or not, but I do know that
Speaker 1: they are the Frankist expression of myself. But she is.
Speaker 1: If you want to classify or art wise, surrealism or
Speaker 1: magic surrealism is uh, definitely categories that her. A lot
Speaker 1: of her work fits under. So I saw a m
Speaker 1: 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 in fluence. It was a huge thing that
Speaker 1: really drives like the visual um impact of her paintings.
Speaker 1: But as far as like schools of art go or
Speaker 1: movements she was, she tapped into primitivism, indigenism, magic realism, surrealism,
Speaker 1: and um again, all of it combined to make her
Speaker 1: an individualist artist. Well, yeah, you mentioned the her indigenous
Speaker 1: roots and and she very much and and I think
Speaker 1: Diego Rivera's one who really encouraged her to embrace that,
Speaker 1: and she started she kind of I mean, she wore
Speaker 1: suits and stuff sometimes since she was a kid, but
Speaker 1: she wore more European style of clothing when she was younger,
Speaker 1: and then really started wearing more Mexican indigenous stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: really colorful stuff. And uh, most famously captured in maybe
Speaker 1: her most famous painting, The Two Fridas in N. Nine.
Speaker 1: It's the double self portrait that on one side shows
Speaker 1: or in the more modern European clothing um and then
Speaker 1: on the other side it's her in her more indigenous
Speaker 1: Mexican clothing, and both of them have their hearts exposed.
Speaker 1: I think on the European side, the arteries are severed
Speaker 1: in things. On the Mexican side, it's intact, the heart
Speaker 1: is intact. Really really pretty, it is very pretty. A
Speaker 1: lot of her work was pretty. Some of it sometimes
Speaker 1: it's like it looks very primitive, and then other times
Speaker 1: they're in some details like the eyes of a cat
Speaker 1: or something like that, you're like, wow, that's really it's
Speaker 1: very like almost photo realistic. Yeah, so it's it's very
Speaker 1: weird to me how her Um, I don't want to
Speaker 1: say her talent, but her Yeah, her visual talents kind
Speaker 1: of we're applied in some places and not not as
Speaker 1: much in others. And I'm wondering what the details were
Speaker 1: that that made her make those decisions. Yeah, she included
Speaker 1: her pets and a lot of her paintings. I think
Speaker 1: fifty five of her paintings featured her pets. Um some
Speaker 1: very famous ones with her her spider monkeys and birds
Speaker 1: on her shoulder. My favorite one is called What the
Speaker 1: Water Gave Me, Um. It's a it's a oh, I guess.
Speaker 1: This is a self portrait in a way of her
Speaker 1: in a bathtub from her vantage point, so you just
Speaker 1: see her her feet and toes sticking out at the
Speaker 1: end of the tub, and then the water is just
Speaker 1: full of all kinds of other stuff, Like it's really nice,
Speaker 1: like there's a volcano with the Empire State building coming
Speaker 1: out of the center of it, with like gangrenous 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 grewesome 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, um,
Speaker 1: do not sneeze on the art. They have signs everywhere
Speaker 1: this This article our hows to works article points out
Speaker 1: the Wounded Deer and My Birth both in the same paragraph. Here.
Speaker 1: Those are two of my favorites. Actually, My birth is
Speaker 1: so just just twisted, but it's also really simple and straightforward.
Speaker 1: It's her mother, but you assume it's her mother. The
Speaker 1: sheets actually placed over her mother's head, so you never
Speaker 1: see her face, and you also kind of get the
Speaker 1: impression that it could be freed to as well. Um,
Speaker 1: but it's Frieda's head, grown up, freeda like coming out
Speaker 1: of the birth canal, the womb as it were. I
Speaker 1: feel like such like a nineteenth century like white guy
Speaker 1: calling it a womb, you know, but um, yeah, it
Speaker 1: is graphic, but it's also it looks it kind of
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't want to armchair critique it
Speaker 1: or anything like that. I just like that one. Um,
Speaker 1: and then uh, the wounded Deer I think is awesome too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we should probably apologize to every art historian and critic,
Speaker 1: Like when it comes to art I love and I
Speaker 1: know you do too, love going to museums, and you're
Speaker 1: probably where I am, which is I just like what
Speaker 1: I like, Like, you know, if it looks nice to me,
Speaker 1: and nice doesn't mean oh that's pretty, but you know,
Speaker 1: if if it touches me in some way, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I like that. Sure, I don't supposed to do. I
Speaker 1: enjoy reading the placards and then understanding a bit more
Speaker 1: behind it. But I'm definitely not some art historian or
Speaker 1: critic all I do appreciate being having art explained to
Speaker 1: me by our historians and by people who know, like
Speaker 1: Sister Wendy that whole series from the eighties or nineties.
Speaker 1: Oh Man, I've told you about before. She's this nun
Speaker 1: who understands art better than anybody in the world. And
Speaker 1: she had like a little PBS series for a while
Speaker 1: where she could just explain art and you just wanted
Speaker 1: to watch the next episode so bad. But I think
Speaker 1: the level that you and I are at that you
Speaker 1: were characterizing is um. It was best captured on a
Speaker 1: Simpsons where there was a museum audio tour that was
Speaker 1: narrated by Melanie Griffith, and when they put it on
Speaker 1: press play, She's like, Oh, let's see what's in this room. Oh,
Speaker 1: this one's nice. I like this one. Oh look at
Speaker 1: that one. What's in the next room. That's the level
Speaker 1: we're at of understanding and appreciating art. 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 host
Speaker 1: did him. She and Diego Rivera at the Blue House
Speaker 1: and supposedly had a brief affair Um. Although other people
Speaker 1: have questioned whether or not was whether or not she
Speaker 1: really did because of I think last year a lot
Speaker 1: of her love letters to Diego were published. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's really interesting their relationship. You know, they divorced in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine, um remarried the next year in nty
Speaker 1: lived in separate houses. They both had their infidelities, but
Speaker 1: UM a really interesting complex relationship um mentor student lovers, friends,
Speaker 1: rivals as well in some cases. Uh, but it's hard
Speaker 1: to obviously as an outsider encapsulated on a podcast, but
Speaker 1: a very complex relationship full of respect and admiration on
Speaker 1: some levels. But also uh, he was also that you know,
Speaker 1: sort of of the time in Mexico and America, just
Speaker 1: that male macho thing going on. I mean, for goodness sakes,
Speaker 1: he tried to have his doctor write a note at
Speaker 1: the city, was physically capable of being faithful. So let's
Speaker 1: just say male dominant complex marriage and relationship. Well, I
Speaker 1: also saw she could kind of, you know, put up
Speaker 1: with his affairs and and she definitely had her own.
Speaker 1: But supposedly he his affair with her younger sister like
Speaker 1: really crushed her. Yeah, that that was I think led
Speaker 1: directly to their divorce. Yeah, I could see that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was uncool. Yeah, diego, Yeah, even with the doctor's note. Diego. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And he died just a few years after her, I
Speaker 1: believe right. I don't know when he died, actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think he died three years after her. Um. By
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties, her health was really declining. She kept
Speaker 1: having these surgeries, kept painting. Nineteen fifty three, she had
Speaker 1: a so exhibition and man, she couldn't get around and
Speaker 1: this is so great in the movie. They she wasn't
Speaker 1: gonna go at all. And then they brought her in
Speaker 1: by ambulance, brought in a four poster bed and that's
Speaker 1: where she was in the gallery. She was laying in
Speaker 1: bed like greeting people. Yeah, she received everyone while she
Speaker 1: was in bed, bedridden. Pretty amazing. And she died a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks later. I think, actually, I think the
Speaker 1: last time she was seen in public she showed up
Speaker 1: for a protest against the US back coup that overthrow
Speaker 1: overthrew our bends in Guatemala. Yeah, Edward Burne's coming back
Speaker 1: in right into the picture every time. Um. And she
Speaker 1: she died again at age forty seven. Man, after a
Speaker 1: life of pain, but a very very productive life of
Speaker 1: pain too changed things quite a bit. Yeah, and with
Speaker 1: her death, she um it's listed as pulmonary embolism, but
Speaker 1: they never did an autopsy, and there it's generally believed
Speaker 1: that she committed suicide by 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. So her when she died, like
Speaker 1: you said, she was you know, fairly well known in
Speaker 1: certain circles in the art world. But when she died,
Speaker 1: her work kind of entered into obscurity. For a few decades,
Speaker 1: it was dormant, and then yeah, it's well put and
Speaker 1: then in the late seventies it was rediscovered. Um bye bye.
Speaker 1: I guess nationalists you could call them art nationalists in
Speaker 1: Mexico 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 it's 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: then it takes a woman who is above fashion too
Speaker 1: to flaunt her unit brow. And that that perfectly that
Speaker 1: that term above fashion perfectly encapsulates free to call o,
Speaker 1: which I thought was a pretty cool thing because 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 me in every single way, inside
Speaker 1: and out and her her legacy in the art world,
Speaker 1: especially among among women female artists, is like the the
Speaker 1: one article we read City just can't overstate the importance
Speaker 1: nice 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, I was apologizing to
Speaker 1: Emily specifically, right. Sorry. I'm uh. If you you want,
Speaker 1: if you're not Emily and you want to know more
Speaker 1: about free to call up. You can search her on
Speaker 1: our website. There's actually a pretty decent little article, and
Speaker 1: then there's tons of stuff. Go look at our art
Speaker 1: all over the web and in person. And since I
Speaker 1: said that's time for the listener mail, I'm gonna call
Speaker 1: this mistakes in defense of us. Hey, guys, I'm sure
Speaker 1: you get annoyed at the influx of emails you get
Speaker 1: every time you make a mistake on your podcast. At
Speaker 1: least that's what I gleaned from a few recent episodes,
Speaker 1: where you anticipate people writing in and correcting you in
Speaker 1: a fact how ironic. Um, I'm writing the counterbalance that
Speaker 1: you guys do a fantastic job. I'm amazed that you
Speaker 1: were able to cover topics in such detail, with such
Speaker 1: high turnover rate, with how quickly produce episodes. I would
Speaker 1: expect so many more mistakes or sloppy work. But not
Speaker 1: not with you. Excuse me, no, not with you. I
Speaker 1: like not not. UM. I'm starting my own podcast and
Speaker 1: it's made me deeply appreciative how talented and gifted you
Speaker 1: guys are as hosts. One day, I hope I'll be
Speaker 1: as smooth and easy going as you are as always.
Speaker 1: Please keep going with your work. You're my favorite podcast.
Speaker 1: I also want to give a shout out, especially to
Speaker 1: your Trail of Tears episodes. I recently went into the
Speaker 1: archives and listened to those two. Uh. You told that
Speaker 1: story beautifully. I think you really did it justice and
Speaker 1: I would recommend that anyone who hasn't listened and go
Speaker 1: back and listen anyway. Seriously, thank you for adding something
Speaker 1: fun to my life. And that great name is from
Speaker 1: uh Shelina Bathala or maybe Batala depending on how you
Speaker 1: pronounce it. Uh. And she is the host, and I
Speaker 1: asked her well you're a bad plugger of your own
Speaker 1: work because I don't even know what your podcast is
Speaker 1: going to be about. But it's coming soon. It's called
Speaker 1: worth It. Yeah, good title. Yeah, everyone. That is how
Speaker 1: you get your podcast plugged on stuff that's right. Whoa
Speaker 1: whoa whoa breaking news. 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 will create a life that
Speaker 1: they're happy with. Nice. I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: feel lost, don't feel connected to themselves, or feel scared
Speaker 1: to do what they actually want to do, like pursue
Speaker 1: a creative career or do something that makes far less money.
Speaker 1: So I talked to people who have been there, who
Speaker 1: are still there, and about their journey and what they
Speaker 1: have done to create happiness in their life. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be good. Yeah, good job. That sounds great. Yeah. Hurry up, Shelina. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: best of luck. We're worth It coming soon to a
Speaker 1: podcast distributors near gu wherever you find your podcast. All right, uh,
Speaker 1: and if you want to get in touch with us,
Speaker 1: you can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm at josh um Clark on Twitter and chuck that
Speaker 1: movie crush on Twitter um. You can also hang out
Speaker 1: with us on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know or Facebook dot com slash Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chok Bryant. You can send us all an email The
Speaker 1: Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com, and there's
Speaker 1: always joining Sutter home on the web Stuff you Should
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Speaker 1: visit how stuff Works dot com. M hm hm