Hopper’s enigmatic paintings look into the hollow core of the American experience—the alienation and loneliness that represents the flip side of to our religious devotion to individualism and the pursuit of often-elusive happiness.
The Mexican artist and feminist icon was a performance artist of paint, using the medium to lay bare her vulnerabilities while also constructing a persona of herself as an embodiment of Mexico’s cultural heritage. Her most famous works are the many surrealistic self-portraits in which she maintains a regal bearing even as she casts herself as a martyr to personal and physical suffering—anguishes rooted in a life of misfortunes that included contracting polio as a child, suffering a catastrophic injury as a teenager, and enduring a tumultuous marriage to fellow artist Diego Rivera.