Most people who are confronted by seemingly insurmountable pain and catastrophe succumb to the depression, much less are able to channel their despair in a creative way. Frida Kahlo, one of the most influential and important artistic personalities of the 20th century, only began painting after she was confined to a bed for three months following a near-fatal bus crash. Kahlo said of her paintings: “I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.” Magnetic, vibrant, sexual, but borne into a body riddled by disease, miscarriage, and a crippling accident—Kahlo managed to make her own life into a work of art. She…