Frida Kahlo: 'Henry Ford Hospital', 1932

Also known as 'The Flying Bed', this is one the most painful self portrait

that Frida Kahlo ever painted. Not only had she just suffered her

second miscarriage, she was also beginning to realize that she could never

carry a pregnancy to term. The six surrounding images, connected to her

lower abdomen by umbilical cord-looking red lines are specific to her

miscarriage: the fetus is Dieguito ('Little Diego') who will not exist; the

snail (at upper right) represents the slow horror of losing a baby; the

machine (at lower left) symbolizes medical impersonality; the orchid

(bottom center) is real, a gift from Diego. The two remaining images of

a pelvis and side view of female anatomy point towards her broken body

link