Frida Kahlo takes a family photo, wearing a 3-piece suit and holding a cane, 1924.
Frida Kahlo takes a family photo, wearing a 3-piece suit and holding a cane, 1924. Nearly 30 years later, in 1953, she writes a letter to Diego Rivera as she awaits surgery to amputate one of her legs. "I’m writing this letter from a hospital room before I am admitted into the operating theatre. They want me to hurry, but I am determined to finish writing first, as I don’t want to leave anything unfinished. Especially now that I know what they are up to. They want to hurt my pride by cutting a leg off. When they told me it would be necessary to amputate, the news didn’t affect me the way everybody expected. No, I was already a maimed woman when I lost you, again, for the umpteenth time maybe, and still I survived. I am not afraid of pain and you know it. It is almost inherent to my being, although I confess that I suffered, and a great deal, when you cheated on me, every time you did it, not just with my sister but with so many other women. How did they let themselves be...