Frida Kahlo's Marxism Will Give Health to the Sick

Marxism Will Give Health to the Sick

Marxism Will Give Health to the Sick brings original peace on earth, for Marxist science can simply save the sick and those oppressed by Yankee criminal capitalism.

Technical Details and Materials

Frida Kahlo, 1954, oil on canvas, 76 x 61 cm.

Materials: Oil on board, with a predominance of dark colors: brown, green, and black. Frida painted this shortly before her death; pain and medication provoked loose, fast brushstrokes, loaded with little detail and heavy pictorial matter.

Composition and Visual Structure

The composition features a vertical division into two spaces with a vertical axis formed by the portrait of Frida herself. The figure has a triangular composition because of the typical Mexican dress. In her hand, she wears a red book. Horizontally, the painting can be divided into three parts:

• The upper section features the face of Karl Marx, a dove of peace, the world, a yellow moon, and an eagle trapped by personifications of the United States emerging from Marx.
• The middle section contains hands (one featuring an eye) that support Frida; beside her, it looks like she is leaving her crutches behind.
• At the bottom, there is a cross and an egg near her skirt.

The painting gives a sensation of movement, as if Frida is suspended in the air.

Symbolic Description and Context

This work represents a clear ideological Cold War context and serves as the author's artistic testament. The most important figure is the author of the painting, who serves as the vertical axis. On the top left, Marx reaches out an arm to catch a white eagle (representing the U.S.) that has the head of "Uncle Sam." On the top right, you see a dove of peace alongside an allegory of the world, which cannot be identified geographically and has a red color representing Marxism.

Frida represents the sick, released from the cross by supporting hands; on one of them, an eye appears, symbolizing wisdom. Frida wears a typical medical corset that accompanied her life since the tram accident she suffered as a youth. The hands symbolize the divinization of Marxism. She wears a typical Mexican skirt.

The figure of the egg at the bottom refers to the link with surrealism and the author; it could represent frustrated motherhood or the birth of a new Marxist world. The book she carries in her right hand might refer to what she wrote for newspapers throughout her life.

Biography of Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo was born in Mexico in 1907. An independent, rebel, passionate, and proud Mexican, she met her husband in 1922 at the National Preparatory School. In September 1925, she suffered a bus crash and sustained serious injuries for the rest of her life. Most of her paintings were created while she was stretched out in bed. She was bisexual despite being married to a man; she eventually recovered the ability to walk and met people who shared her ideology. She never had children; her husband did, and although she admired him, he was unfaithful to her. From 1937 to 1939, Leon Trotsky lived in her home as a refugee, and she had a sentimental relationship with him until his assassination. She starred in several exhibitions, met Picasso in Paris, and was recognized internationally. She died in 1954, and her body was covered with the flag of the Communist Party.