Trotsky’s lover on Theresa’s bangle
PERHAPS she is tired of people talking about her shoes. But Theresa May’s choice of jewellery raised eyebrows yesterday.
Her large bracelet featured a series of pictures of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo – a bisexual feminist icon known for her passionate belief in Communism, who had an affair with Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky.
Teamed with a navy blue dress by British designer Daniel Blake, the bracelet was an unusual choice for a Conservative Prime Minister.
It prompted immediate comment on social media, including jokes that Mrs May’s coughing fit was somehow caused by the artist’s ghost.
Kahlo, a fervent supporter of the Communist Party in Mexico, often decorated her own flamboyant outfits with hammer and sickle motifs.
But she was also known for her stoicism in the face of overwhelming physical pain and emotional turmoil and has become a symbol of strength and female independence – qualities the Prime Minister might have hoped to project.
Most poignantly, Kahlo also wrote extensively about her devastation over her inability to have children following an accident when she was 18.
Mrs May used her speech to the Conservative Party conference to describe her own ‘great sadness’ that she and husband Philip were never able to have children, saying: ‘It seems some things in life are just never meant to be.’
On that sentiment – if little else – the two women could probably have agreed. Kahlo famously said: ‘At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.’
Born in 1907 in Mexico City, Kahlo is now best-known for her numerous self-portraits, often painting herself with a heavy ‘ monobrow’ and moustache.
She was left disabled after suffering polio as a child and then suffered horrific injuries at 18 when a bus she was travelling in was hit by a tram.
Her injuries left her needing more than 30 operations and she endured excruciating pain for the rest of her life, wearing a series of body braces to support her spine and eventually had her leg amputated.
Despite her physical suffering, she was well-known as a political activist and an artist, although during her lifetime her work was overshadowed by the success of her husband, the muralist Diego Rivera.
The pair had a tempestuous relationship and divorced after he had an affair with Kahlo’s sister, only to reconcile and marry again.
Kahlo, who was played by actress Salma Hayek in a 2002 film, had numerous affairs with both men and women, including her brief relationship with Trotsky when he was offered asylum in Mexico.
She died in 1954, aged just 47, and is now celebrated as one of the most important artists of the 20th Century, with her paintings selling for millions.
By last night, Mrs May’s bracelet had inspired numerous online jokes, including mocked- up pictures of Kahlo wearing a Jeremy Corbyn bracelet.