Jessica Fahy Art Historian

This lecture will explore the life and work of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. Her work increasingly resonates powerfully with audiences today arguably even more than it did in her lifetime. Her paintings are relatively few in number, often small in scale, and frequently focused on a single subject—herself. These bold colourful artworks have become some of the most recognizable images in twentieth-century art. In this talk, we will explore the various personal and public contexts that shaped both the imagery of her paintings and the way she presented herself to the world. And we will look at how Kahlo’s work emerged from this complex intersection of personal experience as well national identity, and modern art, and consider how her self-portraits function not only as records of her life, but as carefully constructed works of artistic expression.