Why did Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera divorce in 1939?

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Frida Kahlo stands at an easel, holding a paintbrush and working on a portrait of a woman in a white dress, looking toward the camera. — Frida Kahlo Mexican artist Frida Kahlo painting a portrait of Jean Wight in 1931; the work depicts the wife of artist Clifford Wight, who assisted Diego Rivera, Kahlo's husband, when he was painting a number of murals throughout the United States.

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera divorced in 1939 primarily because their marriage had been undermined by numerous extramarital affairs on both sides. Notably, Rivera had an affair with Kahlo’s younger sister, while Kahlo engaged in relationships with several other men and women.12

The emotional toll of this period is reflected in Kahlo's work from that year, most famously in her painting The Two Fridas, which depicts two versions of herself—one representing the side of her that Rivera purportedly rejected and the other representing the side he loved best. Despite the divorce, the couple reconciled and remarried in 1940.13