Some art historians have disagreed whether her work should be classified as belonging to the movement at all. Frida is also the story of her tempestuous marriage to the muralist Diego Rivera, her love affairs with numerous, diverse men such as Isamu Noguchi and Leon Trotsky, her involvement with the Communist Party, her absorption in Mexican folklore and culture, and of the inspiration behind her unforgettable art. According to art historian Andrea Kettenmann, by the mid-1940s, her paintings were "featured in the majority of group exhibitions in Mexico".

At the invitation of Andre Breton, she went to France in 1939 and was featured at an exhibition of her paintings in Paris. Their purpose was to thank saints for their protection during a calamity, and they normally depicted an event, such as an illness or an accident, from which its commissioner had been saved. The couple lived there from January 1937 until April 1939, with Kahlo and Trotsky not only becoming good friends but also having a brief affair. In June 1945, she traveled to New York for an operation which fused a bone graft and a steel support to her spine to straighten it. Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón ( Spanish pronunciation: [ˈfɾiða ˈkalo]; 6 July 1907 – 13 July 1954 [1]) was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico.Kahlo's interests in politics and art led her to join the Mexican Communist Party in 1927, [1] through which she met fellow Mexican artist Diego Rivera. Kahlo struggled to make a living from her art until the mid to late 1940s, as she refused to adapt her style to suit her clients' wishes.

Marriage was hardly a salve for the suffering that had characterized Frida's young life – a horrific trolley car accident left her broken as a youth and debilitated throughout much of her adulthood. Her mother opposed the marriage, and both parents referred to it as a "marriage between an elephant and a dove", referring to the couple's differences in size; Rivera was tall and overweight while Kahlo was petite and fragile.The exact reasons for his decision are unknown, but he stated publicly that it was merely a "matter of legal convenience in the style of modern times . Later, in his autobiography, Diego Rivera wrote that the day Kahlo died was the most tragic day of his life, adding that, too late, he had realized that the most wonderful part of his life had been his love for her.

Kahlo painted Self-Portrait Dedicated to Leon Trotsky in 1937 during their time together in Mexico City, including a written inscription to Trotsky in the painting on a letter that Kahlo's figure holds. Regardless, the Louvre purchased The Frame, making her the first Mexican artist to be featured in their collection. For example, when she painted herself following her miscarriage in Detroit in Henry Ford Hospital (1932), she shows herself as weeping, with dishevelled hair and an exposed heart, which are all considered part of the appearance of La Llorona, a woman who murdered her children. Her paintings raised the interest of surrealist artist André Breton, who arranged for Kahlo's first solo exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in 1938; the exhibition was a success and was followed by another in Paris in 1939. The accident left her in a great deal of pain while she recovered in a full body cast; she painted to occupy her time during her temporary state of immobilization.On moving to Detroit with Rivera, Kahlo experienced numerous health problems related to a failed pregnancy. Kahlo's paintings often feature root imagery, with roots growing out of her body to tie her to the ground. She painted more "than she had done in all her eight previous years of marriage", creating such works as My Nurse and I (1937), Memory, the Heart (1937), Four Inhabitants of Mexico (1938), and What the Water Gave Me (1938).