Frida Kahlo’s art style & legacy—from the easel to modern-day cultural icon

Want to unlock the daring influence of Frida Kahlo’s art style? Explore her iconic self-portraits, from bold color choices and surrealist tendencies to her wider influence on Mexican art.

It’s not only artists who can be inspired by Frida Kahlo and her work. Her vibrant, expressive art gives designers and creatives plenty of ideas and inspiration. We’ll look at some of Frida Kahlo’s famous paintings and see how to incorporate their concepts and colors into your creative work. But first, let’s get some background. Who is Frida Kahlo, and what type of art did she make?

One of Mexico’s greatest artists, Frida Kahlo, created iconic works of art that continue to increase in value. Her first and only solo show was in 1953, about a year before her death, and she sold very few paintings during her lifetime. However, after her death, she received posthumous worldwide recognition for her bold, authentic paintings and her modern, non-conformist views. Frida Kahlo’s legacy has grown stronger and more influential, with her works selling for between $1.4 million and $34.9 million from 2000 to 2021. She was also the first Latina artist to have a painting in the Louvre. 

Frida Kahlo’s resilience in physical and emotional suffering reveals her undying, powerful spirit in a life shaped by trauma. Contracting polio at age six, experiencing a near-death streetcar accident at age 18, and partaking in a less-than-healthy relationship with husband Diego Rivera, Kahlo painted through it all.

Her art is characterized by self-portrait form, surrealist tendencies, commentary on feminism, politics, personal emotions, and bold colors. Her paintings include many symbols and familiar themes of Mexican art, including folklore, flags, parrots, flowers, and cacti. 

Explore Frida Kahlo’s famous paintings below and draw from their undeniable influence.

Known for her paintings that tout authenticity, raw emotion, and sincerity, Frida Kahlo creates powerful imagery from her decidedly tricky reality. In Henry Ford Hospital, she depicts herself during a miscarriage on a hospital bed with six different floating items tied to her with umbilical cords. 

When she was 18, Kahlo had a serious streetcar accident that left her in lifelong pain. From this near-death experience, she had to endure about 35 operations throughout her life and was no longer able to bear children. This accident shifted her pathway from the study of medicine to painting. 

At the time of this painting, she and her husband, renowned artist Diego Rivera, were attempting to have a baby boy. The medical illustration of the fetus floating above the bed shares her despair at her inability to have a baby. Other symbols include an orchid in the shape of a uterus, a snail, a pelvis, a medical pelvic diagram, and a surgical tool. Never one to shy away from her reality, Kahlo paints herself in a highly vulnerable position, staring out from the painting, bravely facing both the viewer and her truth. There’s a strength in the bloody vulnerability of her paintings that draws her audience in.
While this particular painting may not be a focus for modern-day collaboration reuse, it is an incredible example of how Frida Kahlo helped break down stigmas around abortion, miscarriage, and women’s experiences.

Standing on top of a boundary stone marking the border between Mexico and the United States, Frida Kahlo stands tall in a pink dress, holding the Mexican flag in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Normally known for her bright, traditional Mexican clothing and not usually one to wear such a demure color, Frida has used the pink dress to show her unconventional ideals, painting her nipples through her dress.

On her right and left are Mexico and the United States. She and Rivera were living in Detroit at this time, and the city is pictured on Kahlo’s left, calling attention to the stark, depressing skyscrapers and smokestack pollution. Mexico is represented by a pre-Columbian temple and indigenous flowers, including a Mexican lily. Kahlo carries the Mexican flag to show her allegiance to her homeland.

Frida Kahlo’s fashion has inspired fashion-forward outfits and collections, including Dior’s Cruise ’24 show and Calzedonia’s collection. More recently, a few companies, such as Shein’s fashion collection and Mattel’s Frida Barbie, were accused of using her image without permission.

Painted shortly after her divorce from artist Diego Rivera, The Two Fridas highlights Kahlo’s two personalities, stemming from her inner turmoil over the divorce. On the right, we see Frida in modern garb with an intact heart that wraps around her arm. She holds onto a miniature portrait of Rivera intertwined with her heart to show that she holds onto parts of their relationship.

On the left, we see Frida in traditional Tehuana garb with her heart cut and bleeding onto her white dress. Behind both Fridas is a cloudy sky. As always with Frida’s portraits, her expressions remain stoic and straightforward, and she accurately shares her famous features: a unibrow and a slight mustache that shows her nonconformity. 
Regarding collaborations, The Two Fridas lends itself to double self-portraits, Fancy Lamp matching toys, and the Vans Vault collection of sneakers.

Created one year after her divorce, Frida Kahlo’s Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird shares her raw emotions during this period. In surrealist fashion, she includes symbols of their relationship and her life. She wears a necklace of thorns adorned with a dead hummingbird, which could symbolize the physical pain she felt from her streetcar accident.

She and Rivera kept many monkeys as pets, which were thought to be surrogate children. In the painting, there is a little monkey behind her right shoulder. While there is no direct connection to the black cat behind her left shoulder, viewers assume that this black cat must mean bad luck, especially with its arched back.

While Kahlo is often associated with surrealism for her collage-like compositions, bizarre juxtapositions, and dream-like realism, she always rejected the surrealist label, stating that she painted reality, not the imaginary.
Frida Kahlo’s image and self-portraits are well-known and have been commodified in collaborations such as Crocs, Magnolia Pearl’s clothing items, and Collectable Cities pins.

Also known as Self Portrait as Tehuana, this painting is one of her most famous artworks. Kahlo painted it during her divorce from Rivera in 1940 and didn’t finish it until 1943. She paints herself in traditional Tehuana clothing, a favorite of her and Rivera and indicating her love of Mexican folklore.

She depicts Rivera on her forehead to show that she still thinks about him despite the divorce. While there are many guesses as to why threads reach out from her face to the edges of the painting, the majority believe these are her thoughts that have created a spiderweb to trap Rivera in. 

Kahlo’s beautiful Mexican folklore-inspired themes have inspired Day of the Dead style sculptures by The Ugly Duck, stuffed bear toys by La Palmera, and recycled bags by LOQI.

In this straightforward depiction of the pain and surgeries from her streetcar accident, Kahlo shows herself naked and split open down the center, with a broken column where her spine should be and nails sticking into her skin all over her body. The background mimics the break in her body, with broken ground and canyons, and the sky behind her head is stormy.

Over her lifetime, Kahlo needed about 35 surgeries stemming from the accident and had to wear 28 medical corsets.

Despite her hardship, her resilience has stuck with people, resulting in more collaborations featuring her image, including candles by Flamingo Candles, sneakers by PUMA, and tights by Calzedonia.

Frida Kahlo’s art style and famous paintings have influenced many industries worldwide, including art, fashion, politics, and social activism. Her self-portraits and photographic images have become iconic top-sellers in clothing and interior design, with the recognizable Frida Kahlo art style lending itself to multiple interpretations.

With assets from Envato, you can recreate the influence of Kahlo’s work in your project! Read International Women’s Day – Meet the Female Authors Creating Diverse Content on Envato and Art History: Surrealism if you want more inspiration.