Frida Kahlo was obsessed with monkeys – not to mention parrots, pre-Hispanic dogs, and deer. In her short life, she painted 55 self-portraits (out of 181) that included spider monkeys.
Having been raised in a free-spirited yet strongly political environment by an Oaxacan mother and a German father, she took art lessons at a very young age. Her legs were thin on the side that had contracted polio during her childhood. In the short time since she recovered, she was involved in a nearly fatal car accident that affected her health for the rest of her life. Kahlo was unable to mother her children due to her poor health. The artist filled her home (Casa Azul, located in the Coyocan neighborhood of Mexico City) with various creatures, including spider monkeys, cats, birds, and hairless dogs Xoloitzcuintli. She often depicted her pets in her oeuvre, including her monkeys Fulang Chang and Caimito de Guayabal and her deer Granizo.
Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo collected Mesoamerican objects due to their fascination with these early civilizations. Several of Kahlo’s pets were, in fact, descendants of Mayans and Aztecs. Monkeys, for example, were regarded as fertility deities by the Aztecs. In a sense, Kahlo was similar to her pet monkeys. She treated them as equal to her despite being a philanderer (Kahlo had multiple affairs with both men and women), which might explain why she painted them as equals. In addition to the Xoloitzcuintli dogs she kept, these animals had great significance for the Aztecs as representatives of the underworld. After death, dogs would be buried with their owners if they hadn’t been eaten during the sacrificial ritual.
Her life and works were both influenced by animals, which was helpful to her ability to illustrate her stories effectively.
