How many paintings did Frida Kahlo complete during her lifetime?
She created more than 200 paintings, drawings and sketches, 66 of those paintings self-portraits and about 80 paintings of other subjects. During her lifetime, Frida Kahlo was best known as the flamboyant wife of the celebrated muralist Diego Rivera. Today she has become one of the most celebrated and revered artists in the world. Between 1926, when she began to paint while recuperating from a near-fatal bus accident, and 1954, when she died at the age of 47, Kahlo painted some 66 self-portraits and about 80 paintings of other subjects, mostly still lifes and portraits of friends. “I paint my own reality,” she said. “The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to.” Her reality and her need to explore and confirm it by depicting her own image have given us some of the most powerful and original images of the 20th century. Paradoxically, her work allowed her to both express and continually fabricate her own subjectivity.
