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Margarita Karasoulas ’08 (Harrison, N.Y.) has completed an honors thesis examining Mexican artist Frida Kahlo’s life and artwork through a political lens. The art and history double major worked with Robert Mattison, Marshall R. Metzgar Professor of Art History, as her adviser.
Frida Kahlo, a Mexican painter, is regarded as one of the great artists of the modern era, renowned for her unique style of painting and the fierce candor with which she related her life to her art. After seeing the movie Frida for the first time, I was instantly captivated by her story, and I wasn’t alone. Society’s fascination with Frida Kahlo, termed “Fridamania,” has infiltrated popular culture at a rapid rate. My interest in Kahlo inspired me to further study her life and art, culminating in my honors thesis for the art department this year.
The year 2007 marked an important time for ensuing scholarship because it was the centennial of Kahlo’s birth. As I began my research early last semester, I discovered that much of the preexisting literature on Kahlo had analyzed her art in a cause-and-effect relationship to her biography. The literature focused on the long-lasting impact of her childhood accident and medical injuries and her tumultuous relationship with her husband as the defining elements of her works. In light of this shortcoming, I felt compelled to look at Kahlo through an objective historical and art historical lens, and to call further consideration of an undervalued subject: Kahlo’s connection to politics.
As an art history and history double major, I was particularly interested in investigating the impact of history in shaping Kahlo’s political identity. Kahlo was a product of the Mexican Revolution and its events would leave an indelible imprint on her political and social conscience. From a young age, she proclaimed herself a “guardian of the Revolution” and even changed her birth date to 1910 to reflect the outbreak of the war. Throughout her life, Kahlo was an ardent communist and anti-imperialist. She offered political asylum to the exiled communist Leon Trotsky, solicited money for Mexican soldiers fighting on the side of the loyalists in the Spanish Civil War, and took part in efforts to promote peace during the years of World War II.
I also found that Kahlo’s political consciousness is reflected very clearly in her art. In many of her paintings, Kahlo expresses her ties to the ideals of the Mexican Revolution and a deep commitment to her Mexican roots. She parodies America’s reliance on industry and makes sardonic references to its commercial, capitalist, and materialistic culture. She alludes to the violence inherent in the Mexican Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, and World War II by creating a pictorial language anchored in suffering, destruction, and death. She idolizes and paints herself in connection to some of the most important communist figures of her time. The political, social, and economic references in her paintings make apparent the discourse of politics in her art.
Considering the extensive historiography written on Kahlo, it is still surprising to me that this political facet remains ignored. Writing an honors thesis this year has been an invaluable experience. It provided me with the opportunity to commit to sustained research on a single project, and to work with the esteemed members of the art department. Seeing my research come to fruition has given me an enormous sense of pride. I hope that I have shed a new light on Frida Kahlo’s life and art, and ultimately, made an important contribution to scholarship.
Karasoulas has often taken advantage of Lafayette’s focus on undergraduate research and close faculty-student interaction. As well as her honors thesis, she has worked as an EXCEL scholar with Donald L. Miller, John Henry MacCracken Professor of History, on a number of his book projects. After graduation, she hopes to pursue a career in art by working in a museum, gallery, or auction house, and eventually plans to go back to school to obtain a masters or Ph.D.