How was the work of Frida Kahlo and Georgia O'Keeffe own work different from and similiar to their partners?Georgia O'Keeffe was married to Alfred...

I think that both Kahlo and O’Keeffe sought out their
husbands as mentors first.  Their work parallels their husbands because of this fact. 
In the end, it is this that allows their work to bear so many  similarities to their
husbands.  They approached them as artists, first.  The aspect of being a spouse or a
life partner came afterwards.  Interesting to note that both of Kahlo and O’Keeffe
started to diverge from their mentors’/ husbands’ work once the emotional aspect became
evident.  This could be attributed to a couple of reasons.  One might be that the
relationships that they formed with their mentors, becoming life partners, allowed them
to take risks and branch out in their artistic exploration.  The comfort they felt with
their life partners allowed the courage to take these risks, and to diverge from their
mentors’ watchful eyes.  Another equally valid explanation would be that once their
relationships with their mentors emerged into something where emotional truth and
honesty revealed the mentors’ true sense of self, perhaps their divergence was more out
of a way of flight from them.  For example, Rivera’s infidelities, especially with
Kahlo’s sister, caused her to experience a certain amount of revulsion towards her
former mentor, now significant other.  The artistic divergence that she experienced, for
example, might have been due to a particular emotional experience of distance.  For both
artists, the experience of “peeking behind the curtain” to see another side of their
mentors as their life partners could have caused the change in their work from their
spouses.