Time 23Mar2020

1930s

1938 | SELF-DEFINING ARTIST

FRIDA

KAHLO

BY ANDREW R. CHOW

Frida Kahlo was oFten seen

through the lens of her more famous hus-

band. In 1938, a press release for her first

solo exhibit initially described her as the

“wife of Diego Rivera” before conceding

that “she proves herself a significant and

intriguing painter in her own right.”

These days, it’s more common for Ri-

vera to be viewed in her shadow. And

Kahlo’s work in 1938 turned out to be in-

strumental in building her legacy, as she

came to prominence around the world

for her vivid and surreal self- portraits:

in New York City, where that solo show

was met with excitement and curiosity; in

her hometown of Mexico City, where she

sold her first major painting; and in Paris,

where a work she painted that year would

soon make her the first 20th century Mex-

ican artist to have a painting, The Frame,

bought by the Louvre, beating even her

husband to that milestone.

But the struggle was far from over for

Kahlo, who lived a tumultuous life beset

by hardship and heartbreak. She con-

tracted polio as a child. At 18, she was

the victim of a horrific bus accident that

left her in debilitating pain. She mis-

carried several times; her relationship

with Rivera was vexed by infidelity.

Kahlo channeled this turmoil into

breathtaking, iconoclastic art. She de-

picted taboo topics like abortion, miscar-

riage and breastfeeding; she accentuated

her unibrow and mustache in defiance

of gender norms. At a time when indig-

enous art wasn’t taken seriously, she in-

corporated Mexican folkloric touchstones

into both her paintings and her unique

fashion sensibility. She railed against cap-

italism and imperialism. Through her de-

construction of long-held beliefs about

artistry—and her ability to express both

torturous pain and unfettered joy in her

art—she remains one of the most endur-

ing artists of the 20th century.

1937 PERSON OF THE YEAR

Soong Mei-ling

Formidable patriot

Soong Mei-ling is as much an architect

of modern China as any communist
revolutionary. The Wellesley-educated
wife of Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-

shek was instrumental in winning U.S.
support for China’s war against Japan
(1937–1945), becoming

the first Chinese national
to address both houses

of Congress. At home,
she was seen as power-
hungry but, through her

New Life Movement, helped foster an
upright Chinese identity in opposition
to supposed Western decadence, prefig-

uring some of the ideological zealotry of
the Cultural Revolution. In 1937, TIME
named her Person of the Year alongside

her husband, declaring, “No woman
in the West holds so great a position as

Mme Chiang Kai-shek holds in China.”
—Charlie Campbell

1936 PERSON OF THE YEAR

Wallis Simpson

Royal disrupter

When Wallis Simpson and Edward,

Prince of Wales, fell in love, the course
of the monarchy was altered irrevoca-
bly. The British establishment couldn’t

sanction the heir to the throne marrying
a divorced American; one official called
her a woman of “limitless ambition.”

And so in 1936,
Edward abdicated the
throne he had just in-
herited for the woman
he loved. TIME named
Simpson its first Woman
of the Year, for becoming “the most-
talked-about, written-about, headlined

and interest-compelling person in the
world.” This year, as another American
struggled to navigate the royal family

with her husband, Simpson reminds us
that when modernity clashes with tradi-

tion, nobody emerges unscathed.
ÑSuyin Haynes

THE FRAME, 1938

ITZCUINTLI DOG WITH ME, c.

SIMPSON: HISTORIA/SHUTTERSTOCK; SOONG: AP PHOTO; KAHLO: THE FRAME, 1938: MUSÉE NATIONAL D’ART MODERNE, CENTRE GEORGES POMPIDOU, PARIS. PHOTO: JEAN-CLAUDE PLANCHET. © CNAC/MNAM/DIST. RMN–GRAND PALAIS/ART RESOURCE, NY. © A
1937: DIGITAL IMAGE © MUSEUM OF MODERN ART/LICENSED BY SCALA/ART RESOURCE, NY; © ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NY; ALL KAHLO WORKS: © 2020 BANCO DE MÉXICO DIEGO RIVERA FRIDA KAHLO MUSEUMS TRUST, MEXICO, D.F./ARTISTS RIGHTS S