Kahlo's horrific "A Few Small Nips," painted in 1935, is a revelation in many ways. As Herrera tells the story, Kahlo was inspired to make this gruesome painting, which depicts a man in a bloodbath of an assault on a naked woman who has been stabbed many times, from a newspaper story relating the crime. The killer, while being reprimanded by the judge, was quoted as responding that he had only given the victim a "few small nips."
"A Few Small Nips" by Frida Kahlo
The work came at a difficult time in Kahlo's own life, when her marriage to Rivera was on the rocks, because Rivera had an affair with Kahlo's younger sister, Cristina. The painting is a visual bloodbath itself. Kahlo's misery is projected onto the victim lying naked on a bloodied bed. There's blood everywhere, including the frame, which Kahlo has used to extend the bloodstains.
There's something else that even a Kahlo expert such as Herrera first discovered when she saw this painting for the first time during this exhibition: Kahlo has also stabbed the frame repeatedly, extending her own anger onto the wood, giving it a few small nips of her own.
This is why sometimes even a familiar work of art yields new clues when examined for real. Those angry stabs on the frame had not been revealed in the countless reproductions of this work. This revelation alone is worth a trip to see this exhibition.
Another incarnation of Frida Kahlo was her ability to paint her own pain. Starting with a horrific accident in her youth, which left her body broken and subject to pain throughout the rest of her life as well as countless operations, Kahlo borrowed from her own physical pain to deliver images that makes us wince from a different place than the images of a suicide or a stab victim.
Physical pain that comes from a deep, moist place inside us all, and which Kahlo has exposed via her painting many times. It's there in "The Broken Column," (c. 1944) and also in "Without Hope," and perhaps in one of her best-known paintings, "The Little Deer," where the pain becomes arrows on the deer's body.
There are surprises in this show as well — even for a Fridaphile like myself, and I suspect for most acolytes of Fridamania — such as "The Circle," a round work that is undated and looks nothing like any Kahlo work that I have ever seen.
Article comments
1 - Jim Whalen
lennie---what month in '75 did you hitch a ride on SARA ?? What division ?? jim
{Personal contact info deleted]
2 - Juliann Mitchell
Mr. Campello, a wonderful,informative, well- written piece on Kahlo. Sharing your own personal experiences made for a great read. I planned to see the exhibit next month but after reading your article I will be going this weekend. I recently purchased her diary and have found it fascinating, especially her artwork. Thank you.
3 - Terence Clarke
Hello Lennie:
Thank you for your piece on Frida Kahlo. I too am a Frida and Diego fan, and I especially appreciate your mention of Hayden Herrera's biography of Frida. I've seldom read a serious biography that was so much of a page-turner. Excellent research, fine writing and a real look into the soul of a very fine artist.
I too am a BC writer, by the way, and I hope you'll look at some of my pieces on the graphic arts.
Warm regards,
Terence Clarke
4 - Richard Marcus
Mr Campello
Thank you for the tour through the Frida exhibt in Philly - it looks stunning. I'm amazed at the number of paintings that I was completly unfamiliar with; the still life's and the minatures look like they are worth poring over for ages.
Do you happen to know if the gallery has produced a catalogue of the show that and if it's for sale? For those of us unable to see the show - and I doubt if it will be coming to Canada at any time in the near future - it would be a valuable addition to a collection.
My wife and I recently purchased a new edition of her journals that has just been published, and I was struck again by the emotional honesty of her work. She's able to comment on her personal pain without appearing self-indulgent. Making it a universal statement on what's it's like to suffer so that others can identify, and feel like somebody understands what they are going through.
I speak from personal experience as I too suffer from acute chronic pain - I know in attempting to write about it, how thin the line between self-pity and explanation is, and I've always looked to Frida's work for guidance.
Thank you again for this piece - it's the next best thing to being there.
cheers
Richard Marcus