Henry Ford Hospital by Frida Kahlo
The artwork “Henry Ford Hospital” was made by the talented Mexican artist Frida Kahlo in 1932. The painting “Henry Ford Hospital” is a self-portrait where Frida Kahlo shows her pain for the loss of a pregnancy. In the painting we see Frida Kahlo naked, lying on a hospital bed, surrounded by blood as a result of what appears to be bleeding. I paint her twisted body showing discomfort in her posture: from the waist up, she turns towards the viewer and from the waist down she turns around. From her belly, still swollen, six red filaments come out, as if they were umbilical cords, which are connected to six elements related to abortion. In the upper center, disproportionately large, is the male fetus. At the opposite extreme, the artist painted a withered orchid that represents death. The figurine of a woman’s torso shows the interior of a woman from the painter’s perspective. The snail symbolizes a slow abortion. A metal machine represents the instruments used to perform curettage. Finally, Frida’s pelvis appears, which was unable to house her son. On the horizon appears a model of the Ford Motor Company, in the industrial city of Detroit, where she was living at the time of her abortion.
As a spectator, my first perception when seeing the painting “Henry Ford Hospital” was suffering. The naïf style of this work, the ingenuity and simplicity of the drawings and the apparently simple treatment of the colors conveyed tenderness and compassion to me and also pain, suffering and grief. Another element that I perceived was the separation between heaven and earth at the bottom of the painting. The image of the naked and bloody woman is in the middle of both the earthly and heavenly planes, representing the duality between life and death, as well as resignation and loss of hope. The heartbreaking message that Frida Kahlo represents in this painting moved me because, like her, I long to have a child and the very idea of losing him causes me anguish. This is a revealing painting that hides a heartbreaking message in each element that is represented in it.
