Academic Script

In this lecture, we will bring to you two women artists

from Latin America who have made history in the art
world, and who, thanks to their effort, tenacity and
desire to fight against all odds, stand out as role models
inspiring generations of young people all over the world.
We are going to talk today of Frida Kahlo (1907-1954),
the Mexican painter, and Alicia Alonso (1921), the prima
donna of classical ballet, from Cuba.

In our times, there are a number of Latin American

women artists, painters, sculptors, dancers, some of
whom have made a mark and are well known in the
world. But historically, very less is known about women
artists in general, and particularly from this part of the
world. In fact, in the history of Latin American colonial
art, there is almost no reference to female artists. The
first academy of art created in Latin America, the San
Carlos Academy in Mexico, did not allow women to study
in it. It was at the end of the XIX when the names of Latin
American artists began to be known.

Since the twentieth century women have a more

significant role in the development of the plastic arts,
dance and music in Latin America. If we think of painting,
Frida Kahlo is an outstanding painter along with other
women artists of Latin American modernity who are
equally remarkable, such as Tarsila Do Amaral and Anita
Malfatti of Brazil, Remedios Varo of Mexico, Amelia
Peláez of Cuba to name a few.

Frida Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907, but she always

claimed that she was born in 1910, the year when the
Mexican revolution started, because she wanted her life
to be identified with the modern Mexico. This detail gives
us an idea of her singular personality, characterized since
her childhood by a deep sense of independence, and
rebellion against social and moral ordinary habits, moved
by passion and sensuality, proud of her "Mexicanidad"
and cultural tradition set against the reigning
Americanization: and all of this mixed with a peculiar
sense of humour.

Her life was marked by physical suffering, which started

with the polio contracted at the age of five, as a result of
which her right leg was thinner than the other, even so
she was an agile and dynamic child.

In 1922 she entered the National Preparatory School of

Mexico City, the most prestigious educational institution
in Mexico, which that year had begun for the first time to
admit girls also, to take drawing and modeling classes. It
was precisely in this school that she would come in
contact with her future husband, the well-known
Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, who had been
commissioned to paint a mural in the school auditorium.

Her physical suffering was worsened when she suffered a

tragic accident at 18 years of age. On September 17,
1925, a bus accident left her with permanent injuries: her
spine was fractured as well as several ribs and pelvis, her
right foot was dislocated, her shoulder was disengaged
and a handlebar pierced her from the stomach to the
pelvis. The medicine of her time tortured her body with
surgical operations (32 throughout her life), corsets of
different kinds and mechanical "stretching" systems.
Later, in 1929, she married Diego Rivera, the famous
muralist. Because of her injuries, Frida never had
children, and it took many years for her to accept this
fate.

The boredom of having to lie down all the time in bed led
her to begin painting. In 1926, a year after the accident,
she sketched The Accident in the traditional style of
religious paintings of Mexico, the ex-voto or Votive
paintings. Traditionally, these paintings are executed on
sheets of tinplate and portray the scene in which a
miracle occurs. The miracle in this sketch is that Frida did
not die. One of the characteristics of ex-voto is that the
scene is described in a double way, in drawing and
words. Many of Frida's paintings will incorporate ex-voto
style elements.
In 1926, still in her convalescence, she painted her first
self-portrait under the title Autorretrato con traje de
terciopelo, meaning Self Portrait in a Velvet Dress. This
would be the first of a long series of self portraits in
which she would express the events of her life and her
emotional reactions to them.

Another one of her self portraits, for example, is titled

Autorretrato en la frontera entre México y los Estados
Unidos, that is Self Portrait on the Border between
Mexico and United States: Frida made this painting in
1932, nostalgic for her country: in this painting she shows
her sentiments towards United States. The background is
full of images that evoke the two countries, but in her
hands she holds a flag with Mexican colours, making it
clear where her heart lies.

She used to wear traditional Mexican outfits consisting of

long colorful dresses and exotic jewelry. She wanted her
work to be an affirmation of her Mexican identity and so
she frequently used techniques and themes extracted
from the folklore and folk art of her country. This, along
with her close knit eyebrows, became her trademark
image.

In 1939 she exhibited in Paris in the Renon et Collea

Gallery thanks to Andre Breton. During her stay in the
French capital she also met Pablo Picasso and appeared
on the cover of the French "Vogue". By then Frida was
known throughout the world. In the spring of 1953 the
Gallery of Contemporary Art of Mexico City organized,
for the first time, an important exhibition. Frida's health
was very bad at the time and the doctors forbade her to
attend it. Minutes after all the guests were inside the
gallery they began to hear sirens from outside. The mad
crowd headed outside, there was an ambulance
accompanied by a motorcycle escort. Frida Kahlo had
arrived to her exhibition in a hospital bed. She was
placed in the center of the gallery. The crowd came to
greet her. Frida told jokes, sang and talked to people the
whole afternoon. The exhibition was a resounding
success.
That same year they had to amputate the leg below the
knee due to a gangrene infection. This plunged her into a
great depression and she finally died in Coyoacán on July
13, 1954. Her last words in her diary were: “Espero que
la marcha sea feliz y espero no volver” ["I hope the
march is happy and I hope I do not come back."]

Four years later, her family home became the Frida Kahlo
Museum. Her life has been depicted in several films and
documentaries, a notable film being the US Canada co-
production of 2002 titled Frida in which the actor Salma
Hayek has played the role of Frida Kahlo.

Frida Kahlo was a pioneer whose life always moved

between tragedy and success. She was a free woman in
all facets of her life, assuming her political and social
commitment inseparable from her art. She is certainly
the most important Latin American artist of the 20th
century.

Cuba’s Alicia Alonso: An International Ballet Legend

Alicia Ernestina de la Caridad del Cobre Martinez del
Hoyo, known by the name of Alicia Alonso, is Prima
Ballerina Assoluta and Director of the National Ballet of
Cuba. At 96 years of age as we speak now, she is one of
the most important personalities in the history of dance
and is the leading figure of classical ballet in Latin
America, who is famous for bringing her personal style to
ballet and helping to popularize the art in Cuba.

Alicia was born in Havana in 1920, one of the two

daughters of an army officer. Her family had no shortage
of money. So when it was noticed that she had a talent
for music and dance, she was quickly enrolled in the
Sociedad Pro-Arte Musical.

At 16, she married a fellow ballet student, Fernando

Alonso, and the two moved to New York. In those days if
one wanted to be a ballet dancer, there were no facilities
in Cuba, and one had to study in the United States or
Europe. She soon became one of the founding members
of the American Ballet Theatre. By the late 1940’s, she
was considered one of the world’s greatest dancers. But
Alonso remained determined to promote ballet in Cuba,
and so in 1948, she came back to Havana, and set up the
Alicia Alonso Ballet Company.

The school was largely funded by the then burgeoning

Cuban high society, with wealthy patrons happy to have
their names associated with such a distinguished project.
The Cuban Ministry of Education also made a modest
subsidy.

But by the mid fifties, the company had run into financial
difficulties, and also political problems. Facing increasing
domestic upheaval, President Batista attempted to
recruit the Alonso Ballet Company to his cause. He
wanted the group to dance on demand, often in order to
distract people from nearby student protests. When the
dancers refused, all funding was cut.
The school folded temporarily, and Alicia left Cuba once
again, this time to join the Monte Carlo Ballet. She
returned when Batista’s government was overthrown by
the Cuban Revolution in 1959. President Fidel Castro sent
her a message, asking her what they needed to make the
company the way they wanted it. So they sent him a big
list of their dreams, and within weeks, the school was
receiving generous funding. It was renamed the Ballet
Nacional de Cuba.

In one of the more evocative, and touching stories of the

Cuban Revolution, the group then went on a tour of
Cuba, demonstrating ballet to people in the most remote
parts of the island. Most of the audience had never seen
the dance before and they were amazed. But they
understood quite soon what the artists were
doing. Alicia thought that it was because Ballet is a
natural art, the art of movement.

Throughout her career, Alicia Alonso has struggled with

her eyesight. It was in the 1940’s that she was first
diagnosed with a detached retina, and she has been
through several operations since. She is now nearly blind,
but still actively supervises all the Cuban National Ballet’s
work, and choreographs, using her loyal assistants to
interpret her directions.

Cuban ballet, while influenced by Russian and Soviet

styles, is now recognized the world over as having its
own unique form. Through the Ballet Nacional and its
network of schools, Alicia and Fernando Alonso have
created a uniquely Cuban style of dance. Earning
worldwide acclaim, the Ballet has performed in 58
countries and received hundreds of international awards
One of her constant battles has been the preservation of
styles. As she says, it is the styles that turn technique into
art, that make the dancer’s art not a monotonous and
expressionless gymnastics. According to her it is within
the style, that a dramatic idea and an aesthetic sensibility
is expressed. What she asks the new generations of
interpreters is that they attend to these concepts, whose
dominion will make them artists. "
At age 96 and nearly blind, and despite her age and frail
body, Alicia Alonso is still at the helm of the Ballet
Nacional. She has lost her sight but this woman who has
dedicated her life to the ballet no longer needs to see in
order to create. "I see the dance and the composition of
steps on the scene with my imagination." She has played
a pivotal role in ballet, in Cuba and on the world stage.
Cuban ballet has been at the pinnacle of international
dance for decades, and Cuba continues to produce some
of ballet’s best dancers. For Cuba, her name is
synonymous with ballet.