One fall day in 1938, Frida Kahlo's paintings hung in New York's Julian Levy Gallery. She did well for her first solo exhibition, selling half the pieces. In the years that followed, the Mexican painter suffered extreme tragedies and intense love affairs that contributed to her development into an extraordinary woman and artist. Her impact is undeniable. Sixty-nine years later, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis kicks off an exhibition to commemorate the centennial of the artist's birth.

Co-curated by Kahlo biographer Hayden Herrera, the exhibition includes fifty of the artist's works created during the course of her career, from 1926 to 1954, when she died. A privately tormented, politically aggressive, and fascinatingly unique individual, Kahlo blatantly reveals herself in her iconic self-portraits. Rife with her own amalgam of unsettling symbolism, paintings in the exhibition like Henry Ford Hospital and Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbirdreveal moments of fervent, yet plaintive pain. While works like Me and My Parrots, and Frieda and Diego Rivera put forth a promise of fulfillment and tranquility that she could only attain through art.

Frida Kahlo runs at the Walker through January 20, 2008 when it heads to Philadelphia (February 20 - May 18), and then on to San Francisco (June 14 - September 28). For $6 pick up an Antenna Audio XP-vision multimedia player, basically a suped up audio tour with archival footage, and video interviews. Back in your room at the Westin Minneapolis, ponder whether or not great art is only achieved through great pain, and experience a renewed sense of comfort in your heavenly bed.