Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist who used personal experience as inspiration for her work. At the age of 18, she was injured in a serious bus accident. Her spine was fractured and many other bones were broken. Despite many operations, the remaining 29 years of her life were filled with pain.

After her accident, Kahlo taught herself to paint, using an easel specially designed for her to use in bed. When she was finally able to walk again, she brought three of her paintings to show to the famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. They were eventually married, but their marriage was unhappy. Kahlo portrayed Rivera and her agonizing love for him as a recurring theme in her paintings.

Frida Kahlo’s unique painting style shows the directness, frontal poses, and strange space and scale of primitive Mexican art. Her work is most significant for its very personal autobiographical content. She was called a Surrealist—a member of the movement that took the dream world as its subject.

Always in the shadow of her husband’s fame as a mural painter, Kahlo finally had her first exhibition in 1953 at the Gallery of Contemporary Art in Mexico City. She had to be carried to the opening on a hospital cart. Four months later, one of her legs required amputation. She ordered a red velvet boot for her false leg and embroidered it with a design of bells. Her death in 1954 ended her pain.