Oil on canvas. Collection María Félix, Mexico City.
As 1953 drew to a close, her painting continued, though its brushwork had reverted to a more primitive style from her learning years in the 1920s. She seemed to collapse into herself following the amputation of her right leg that had become septic with gangrene. She had kept that leg since her brush with polio at age 13 when it was turned into a withered “cane.” The bus accident had broken it in eleven places. She had dragged it with her for more than 30 years, and in all her paintings of that treacherous limb, she had used a mirror reflection and rendered it as her left leg. Now, it had been hacked off below the knee. Frida grudgingly accepted a wooden leg, but she was too frail to get much use from the prosthetic. Her addiction to pain killers and reliance on alcohol also made its convenience more hazardous than useful. Despite daily injections that left her back and arms covered with scabs, she managed long periods of lucidity, keeping notes in her diary, and working on an autobiography through 1953. Her final painting titled, Viva la Vida, (Long Live Life) (p. 57) depicts a collection of chopped watermelons with those words inscribed into a melon’s pulp. She attended a Communist rally on July 2, 1954, shaking her fist and chanting with the crowd. Ten days later, as Diego sat with her holding her hand, she gave him a silver ring celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary 17 days distant. When he questioned the timing of her gift, she said, “…because I sense that I’ll be leaving you very soon.”