Product Description

Featuring more than three hundred illustrations, half of them in full color, a facsimile of the diary--never before published--of the twentieth-century Mexican artist in its original size is accompanied by an English transcription and commentary. BOMC Div.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #245883 in Books
• Published on: 1998-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 296 pages

Amazon.com Review
Frida Kahlo's diary, like her art, is painted in breathtakingly vivid colors. It covers her tumultuous last decade and encompasses love letters, political musings on Communism, and resplendent paintings. The paintings, peopled with mythic figures, self-portraits, and monsters, articulate Kahlo's fantastic visions. One drawing melds a procession of crying faces onto an intertwined couple surrounded by body parts, only to dissolve into a mass of roots and dendrites.

In the introduction, Carlos Fuentes writes, "...a streetcar crashed into the fragile bus she was riding, broke her spinal column, her collarbone, her ribs, her pelvis.... The impact of the crash left Frida naked and bloodied, but covered with gold dust." Her paintings depict her bodily experience, from anguish to sensuality. Kahlo said, "I never painted dreams, I painted my own reality." This visionary ability earned her a place among the surrealists.

Kahlo's prose delves into the associations between images and words, feelings and thought. Her writings shed welcome light on her active intelligence and provide an outline of the events of her life. This Abradale edition features plates reproducing the pages of the diary, and essays by Carlos Fuentes and Sarah Lowe that place it in the context of Mexican art, politics, and history. It is a magical work that adds to an understanding not only of Kahlo's work, but of her interior world as well. --Madeline Crowley

From Publishers Weekly
Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1919- 1954) kept this haunting journal during the last decade of her life, preoccupied with death, beset by declining health, isolation and repeated surgical operations resulting from the bus accident that severely damaged her spine, pelvic bones, right leg and right foot at the age of 18. This facsimile edition reproduces her handwritten, colored-ink entries and accompanying self-portraits, sketches, doodles and paintings, which fuse surrealism, pre-Columbian gods and myths, biomorphic forms, animal-human hybrids, archetypal symbols. Ardent entries and love letters mirror her obsessive devotion to her husband, painter Diego Rivera. In his moving introduction, Mexican critic/novelist/poet Fuentes relates Kahlo's images of pain, loss, mutilation and transcendence to Mexico's historic cycles of revolution and reaction. Lowe, author of the study Frida Kahlo, ably places the journal in the context of the painter's shattered life. Sprinkled with irony, black humor, even gaiety, and augmented with translations of the diary entries plus commentaries and photographs, this volume is a testament to Kahlo's resilience and courage.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author
The Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) is now regarded as one of the most significant artists of the twentieth century.

Carlos Fuentes is celebrated internationally as one of the world's foremost literary figures. He has written numerous essays, articles, and novels. He has also served as Mexico's ambassador to France and has held other diplomatic and academic posts.

Sarah M. Lowe is the author of Frida Kahlo, an analytical study of her paintings, and coauthor of Consuelo Kanaga: An American Photographer. Her monograph on the photographs of Tina Modotti is also published by Abrams.

Customer Reviews

Life as Art
There are some people for whom life itself is art, tragedy and all. Frida Kahlo was-is one of those people, her entire life was art in motion. I feel very lucky to have a copy of this personal work. There's darkness, humor, despair, love, warmth, sensuality, inspiration... The authors give a sensitive perspective on the journal entries along with translations in the back. Some may find this morbid but for me it is intensely life affirming, vibrant and beautiful. This is a book to be savored and revisited again and again.

Love Frida
I loved this book! I can't seem to put it down I do have to say that I would recommend it for billingual readers you will get a better understanding of the book. It is translated in english towards the back but, spanish readers will benifit the most out of the book because you will be able to understand Frida's humor about Diego. The first part of the diary is all in spanish and was written by Frida. The 2nd half is the english translation that will show a small replica of her drawings with the english translation. Some words are better left in spanish because the translation in english will not do them justice. Frida expresses her feelings so well that you can't help but feel her burning passion for diego and her lonliness. Frida was an intersting individual and her art is magnificent. She was an artist and a poet. Frida's diary is very morbid to say the least but, I love it. She expressed exactly what she felt at that exact moment. Her explanation to the way she sees each color is fantastic. I have gone through her paintings to see how many times she used the color Yellow. Buy the book to find out what this color means. Her physical pain is obvious and her paintings speak out for them selves. There is no doubt she was madly in love with diego above all. I learned much more about her through this diary. Please buy the Frida movie starring Selma Hayek things will make more sense to you. The author of this book uses every day language to translate her art. It is a must have book, I will definetly read it over and over. The book is absolutely a must have for Frida addicts like myself. I sometimes get lost while I'm reading it because I feel as if I can see and feel what she is describing. I absolutely love Frida and her artwork. Don't hesitate to buy this book it is worth every dollar you spend.

Beautiful
This book is simply beautiful. I especially love that it's a full color reproduction and then an English translation follows. If you are Frida devotee, I suggest getting this book.