Submitted Photo Maggie Bryan-Peterson (pictured above) presented her paper titled “Frida Kahlo” during a recent meeting of the Fredonia Shakespeare Club.

The Fredonia Shakespeare Club met for its fourth regular meeting of the 2016-2017 year at the home of Nicki  Schoenl. President Judi Lutz Woods presided, with 14 members present and welcomed club members to the 131st year of the club.

The topic for the year is “Women Artists, Authors, Designers & Entrepreneurs.” Maggie Bryan-Peterson  presented her paper titled “Frida Kahlo.” Her paper is summarized as follows:

Frida Kahlo (1907/1910 — 1954) Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist in the 1930s and 1940s who reflected the indigenous culture of her country and her life in a unique style that combined realism, symbolism and surrealism. An active communist, she was the wife of Mexican muralist and cubist painter Diego Rivera.

Recognition on a wide scale came to Kahlo after her death. She is most known for her self-portraits, often expressing her physical pain and suffering through symbolism. Kahlo was also known for her unconventional appearance — she had a small moustache and uni-brow, which she usually exaggerated in self-portraits and she wore, with great pride and to please Rivera, brightly colored clothing inspired by traditional Mexican dress.

One central theme of Kahlo’s work includes evoking the dualities in life, often putting several allegorical examples on the same canvas. Self-portraits define Kahlo’s work. “I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best,” she would say.

Kahlo died July 13, 1954 at the age of 47, reportedly of a pulmonary embolism, although upon the finding and recent release of her diary, many suspect that it was a suicide by overdose. In her diary, her last written words thank many in her life and end with the lines “I hope the leaving is joyful — and I hope never to return — FRIDA.” And the book’s last image is a bleak, dark winged being — the Angel of Death.

When Kahlo died, she left paintings that reflect her life, as well as a collection of effusive letters to lovers and friends, and the colorfully candid journal entries. She enjoyed life fully and passionately. “It is not worthwhile,” she once said, “to leave this world without having had a little fun in life.” All her works are irrefutable evidence that her life was nothing less than a quest to be honest to herself.

Kahlo produced only about 200 paintings — mostly still life and self-portraits and portraits of family and friends. She also kept an illustrated journal and did dozens of drawings. With techniques learned from both her husband and her father, she created raw emotional and singular paintings, fusing elements of surrealism, fantasy and folklore into powerful narratives. In contrast to the 20th-century trend toward abstract art, her work was uncompromisingly representational and figurative.

Her work told stories of her life, one rife with passion, joy, creativity and pain, revolving around nearly constant health problems. She was a many-faceted, but very human being, seemingly tragic and flawed, but hugely alive and her works express this complexity. Today, she is regarded as a feminist icon and is celebrated world-wide.

Mary Croxton  assisted at the tea table.

The next meeting of the club will be held today at the home of Bryan-Peterson, where Joyce Haines will present her paper on “Nora Ephron.”