Who Did Frida Kahlo Marry?
Frida Kahlo married the famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, twice. They wed in 1929, divorced in 1939, and remarried in 1940. It was a passionate, painful marriage full of affairs on both sides.
She loved him more than anyone, and he hurt her more than anyone. She called him one of the two great accidents of her life.
Here is the story of the most famous marriage in art.
The marriage at a glance
Husband: Diego Rivera, the muralist.
First married: 1929, when she was 22 and he was 42.
Divorced: 1939.
Remarried: 1940.
Both: had affairs throughout.
The elephant and the dove
Diego Rivera was twenty years older than Frida, enormous in size and reputation, and already Mexico's most celebrated painter when they married in 1929.
Her family was horrified. Her mother called the match a marriage between an elephant and a dove. They were not wrong about the mismatch. They were wrong that it would not last.
A marriage of betrayals
Diego was a relentless womanizer, and Frida knew it. The wound she could not forgive came around 1934, when he had an affair with her younger sister, Cristina.
Frida took her own lovers in return, both men and women, including the photographer Nickolas Muray. Their marriage ran on passion, art, politics and revenge in roughly equal measure.
The affair with Trotsky
When the exiled Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky fled to Mexico, Frida and Diego took him in at her family home, the Blue House.
That same house, the Casa Azul, is now her museum, told room by room.
Frida had a brief affair with him there, under Diego's nose. It was tangled up with her own politics, which you can read about in was Frida Kahlo a communist.
Divorce and remarriage
In 1939 the betrayals finally broke them and they divorced.
It did not take. Barely a year later, in 1940, they married again, this time on cooler terms that Frida set: they would keep separate money and a more independent life. They stayed together, in their strange way, until she died.
Two careers, one shadow
While she lived, Diego was the star and Frida was often introduced simply as his wife.
Yet he was one of her loudest champions, and said plainly that she was the better painter. After her death the world agreed, and the fame quietly switched sides. The full arc is in Frida Kahlo: The Complete Story.
FAQ about Frida Kahlo's marriage
Who did she marry? Diego Rivera, the Mexican muralist.
How many times? Twice. They divorced and then remarried.
Did they cheat? Yes, both of them, repeatedly.
Did she have an affair with Trotsky? Yes, reportedly, while he stayed at her home.
Were they together when she died? Yes.
Married to her second accident
Frida said two great accidents had shaped her life. The first was the streetcar.
The second, she said, was Diego. She stayed married to that accident, on and off, until the day she died.
Her whole story, in one place: The tragic life of Frida Kahlo