Nancy had promised to paint a painting for me several times. I didn’t want to call and complain when she didn’t get around to it, but was resigned that she might never paint me a painting.

So when she brought up painting me a painting again I was a little hesitant about getting my expectations piqued and then dashed. I said as much to her. She asked if I had thought about what she wanted her to paint for me. I had been thinking quite a while about it. I love the great artist Frida Kahlo and Nancy and others in my family also love her. I had been thinking about the image of Frida Kahlo crucified. When I said this to Nancy, she was outraged. “That’s just a bad joke,” she huffed. 

I didn’t mean it as a joke so I explained. “A joke would be Garfield the cat crucified. The image of Frida Kahlo crucified is serious to me.” “She wasn’t crucified,” Nancy correctly noted. “Actually mom, she was crucified. She was crucified when that pole was rammed through her in that street car accident.”

An iron handrail had impaled her through her pelvis, as, she would later say, piercing “the way a sword pierces a bull.” Surgeons and others removed the handrail, causing Kahlo immense pain.

Kahlo’s pelvic bone had been fractured and the rail had punctured her abdomen and uterus. Her spine had been broken in three places, her right leg in 11 places, her shoulder was dislocated, her collarbone was broken, and doctors later discovered that three additional vertebrae had been broken as well.

From https://www.biography.com/news/frida-kahlo-bus-accident

“That’s true,” my mother admitted.

“She was further crucified by being one of the greatest artists in the world but to the world she was ‘merely’ a Mexican woman.”

“That’s true,” my mother admitted.

“And she was crucified by her love for that pig Diego Rivera.” My mother loves Diego Rivera’s artwork and she leapt to his defense. “He wasn’t a pig; he was a great artist.” “Mom, he had sex with Frida’s sister!” “OK,” Nancy admitted, “he was a pig; but he was a great artist too.” We talked some more and she tentatively agreed to paint the crucified Frida.

Around this time, I brought her up from Chicago to visit me. She said, “What does a cross even look like exactly?” We decided to go to the art library at the University and look for depictions of crosses. 

Also, Nancy was expressing resistance to painting Frida naked on the cross. I said, “They didn’t crucify people wearing dirndls. I don’t need you to paint gynecological details, but Frida naked would be much more powerful.” “While at the library I was off in the stacks looking for books including depictions of crucifixions. I had brought Nancy the one book about Frida Kahlo that she did not own. I was off searching and I heard a familiar cackle. I came back and in response to my questioning look Nancy said, “I’ll paint her naked.” I was stunned. I asked her if she had found a note in the book saying, ‘Nancy, paint me naked.’”

“No,” she replied laughing. “But what changed your mind?” I asked. Evidently, a friend was interviewing Frida and asked her about a particular painting where you see Frida sitting hands folded in her lap but you don't actually see her hands. Her friend asked her about her hands and Frida said, “Well I might be masturbating.” When Nancy read that she decided to paint Frida naked. 

In her inimitable style, Nancy painted the painting in a three days, painting eighteen hours a day. She told me she was mostly finished. I was going to visit her anyway, I was very excited to see the painting so I went steaming down to Chicago. My mother has always been very fragile about her artwork so if I had any critique she could hear it but I knew her tendency to only hear negative. I truthfully told her that I thought it was spectacular. I told her, “Mom, if you only had a penis, then you’d be a great artist.”

“But?” she asked. "Well, Frida is perfect. But I’m not totally crazy about the background. She had painted a kind of desert-like background. It might've made sense for a crucifixion in North Africa, but the crucified Frida deserved a much more fecund, moist background. She asked if I had any ideas. I said that I was thinking more Henri Rousseau-ish.

I went out to used bookstores (remember them?) and returned a few hours later. Nancy had repainted the background to that which you see in the finished painting. By the way, the original painting is 2 feet wide by 3 feet tall.