“Frida Kalho’s pictorial treatment of family and her Germanness in her artworks”, in Frida Kahlo’s Germany, A. Heinz and J.S. Klotz (eds.). Forthcoming with Verlag, Pforzheim, October 2022.

This chapter seeks to investigate Frida Kahlo’s pictorial treatment of her family, examining connections to German art in order to show her permanent link to her heritage. But why does this chapter focus on Kahlo’s Germanness in her artworks? Because it seems that while all of the existing literature on Frida Kahlo sheds lights on some aspects of her connections with Germany, there does not seem to be an ad hoc study on the pictorial treatment of her family that thoroughly highlights the roots of her German side, nor are there explorations of other elements that demonstrate her Germanness. In its methodology, the present chapter first interrogates the iconography used to represent Kahlo family’s (e.g. My sister Cristina, 1928; My nurse and I, 1937); secondly, it studies all re-elaboration and reception of great German masters admired by the artist. Finally, the chapter looks at the artworks produced in the Nazi era that seem to suggest an attempt to distance herself from Germany (e.g. Roots, 1943). Nevertheless, numerous artworks show that she was constantly referencing Germany in her artwork.