
Budaya Meksiko dan tradisi budaya suku Indian penting dalam karyanya yang kadang ditandai baik sebagai seni naivisme maupun seni rakyat.[8] Karyanya juga telah digambarkan sebagai "surealis" dan pada tahun 1938, André Breton, inisiator utama dari gerakan surealis, menggambarkan seni Kahlo sebagai "pita di sekitar bom". Kahlo menikah dengan seniman Meksiko terkenal, Diego Rivera. Ia menderita masalah kesehatan seumur hidupnya yang berasal dari kecelakaan lalu lintas saat remaja. Isu ini terwakili dalam karya-karyanya, yang kebanyakan merupakan potret diri dari satu jenis atau yang lainnya. Kahlo mengatakan, "Aku melukis diri sendiri karena aku sering sendirian dan karena aku subjeknya maka aku tahu yang terbaik."

Born to a German father and a mestiza mother, Kahlo spent most of her childhood and adult life at her family home, La Casa Azul, in Coyoacán. She was left disabled by polio as a child, and at the age of eighteen was seriously injured in a traffic accident, which caused her pain and medical problems for the rest of her life. Prior to the accident, she had been a promising student headed for medical school, but in the aftermath had to abandon higher education. Although art had been her hobby throughout her childhood, Kahlo began to entertain the idea of becoming an artist during her long recovery. She was also interested in politics and in 1927 joined the Mexican Communist Party. Through the Party, she met the celebrated muralist Diego Rivera. They were married in 1928, and remained a couple until Kahlo's death. The relationship was volatile due to both having extramarital affairs; they divorced in 1939, but remarried the following year.
Kahlo spent the late 1920s and early 1930s traveling in Mexico and the United States with Rivera who was working on commissions. During this time, she developed her own style as an artist, drawing her main inspiration from Mexican folk culture and painting mostly small self-portraits, which mixed elements from pre-Columbian and Catholic mythology. Although always overshadowed by Rivera, her paintings raised the interest of Surrealist artist André Breton, who arranged for her to have her first solo exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in 1938. The exhibition was a success and was followed by another in Paris in 1939. While the French exhibition was less successful, the Louvre purchased a painting from Kahlo, making her the first Mexican artist to be featured in their collection.
Throughout the 1940s, Kahlo continued to participate in exhibitions in Mexico and the United States. She also began to teach at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado "La Esmeralda", and became a founding member of the Seminario de Cultura Mexicana. Kahlo's always fragile health began to increasingly decline in the same decade. She had her first solo exhibition in Mexico in 1953, shortly before her death the following year at the age of 47. Kahlo was mainly known as Rivera's wife until the late 1970s, when her work was rediscovered by art historians and political activists. By the 1990s, she had become not only a recognized figure in art history, but also regarded as an icon for Chicanos, feminists, and the LGBTQ movement.