Gilgamesh and Enkidu Meets Frida Kahlo - The Suicide Of Dorothy Hale (1938)
Description
Frida Kahlo's painting is entitled The Suicide of Dorothy Hale (1938). This painting depicts the tragic story of Dorothy Hale, an American actress and socialite who’s failling career. Dorothy Hale began to experience depression after her rich husband died in 1931. Then Dorothy Hale was deeply in debt, and she had many affairs with several married men. But many love stories failed.
Dorothy Hale throws a farewell party for her friends. He invited them and said he was going far away and so he threw a farewell party. None of Hale's friends realized that this was their last meeting with him, they thought he was just going to wander far abroad for a long time. Apparently at 05:15 am, on October 21, 1938 Hale committed suicide by jumping out of his New York apartment. All of Dorothy Hale's friends were sad and shocked, they did not expect Hale's suffering to be more severe than they imagined. Even the news of Hale's death, became a national conversation in the United States at that time.
Clare Boothe Luce, who is Dorothy's close friend and an admirer of Frida Kahlo, also the publisher of the fashion magazine "Vanity Fair", almost immediately commissioned Kahlo to paint a "recuerdo" (remembrance) portrait of their deceased mutual friend with $400. Clare intended to give this portrait to Dorothy's grieving mother as a gift. She presumed Frida Kahlo would paint a normal portrait of Dorothy, which you can hang over the fireplace. But when the painting arrived in August 1939 and unwrapped, Clare was so shocked and almost passed away. Clare did not think that Kahlo painted the process of Dorothy Hale's suicide, of course Clare thought this was inappropriate to give to her mother, especially when her mother is grieving. She was seriously thinking of destroying it but friends convinced her not to. Apparently this painting later became one of Frida Kahlo's masterpieces.