Product Description

Hailed by readers and critics across the country, this engrossing biography of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo reveals a woman of extreme magnetism and originality, an artist whose sensual vibrancy came straight from her own experiences: her childhood near Mexico City during the Mexican Revolution; a devastating accident at age eighteen that left her crippled and unable to bear children; her tempestuous marriage to muralist Diego Rivera and intermittent love affairs with men as diverse as Isamu Noguchi and Leon Trotsky; her association with the Communist Party; her absorption in Mexican folklore and culture; and her dramatic love of spectacle.

Here is the tumultuous life of an extraordinary twentieth-century woman -- with illustrations as rich and haunting as her legend.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #50391 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-01
• Released on: 2002-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 528 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780060085896
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
"A haunting, highly vivid biography." -- Ms. magazine

Review
"A haunting, highly vivid biography." (Ms. magazine )

About the Author
Hayden Herrera is an art historian. She has lectured widely, curated several exhibitions of art, taught Latin American art at New York University, and has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is the author of numerous articles and reviews for such publications as Art in America, Art Forum, Connoisseur, and the New York Times, among others. Her books include Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo; Mary Frank; and Matisse: A Portrait. She is working on a critical biography of Arshile Gorky. She lives in New York City.

Customer Reviews

Top Kahlo book out there
If you are a Frida Kahlo or Diego Rivera fan (as I am) that is... then this book is your bible -- it is a well-organized orchestration of dates, facts, and photographs about the Mexican artist gods. Some of the moments in the book are intimate, while others are possibly exagerations of the artists' famous life.

With a movie in the works (Selma Hayek plays Frida - that is after Laura San Giacomo, Madonna and Jennifer Lopez all had the part, and were dropped because Fridomexicans complained about the lack of Mexicanity in the actresses chosen to portrait their newly-found goddess), Kahlo is sure to solidify her position as the top-of-the-art-food-chain Latin American artist of the century (Georgia O'Keefe considered her the best female artist of the 20th century) and make her iconic face even more famous.

Kahlo deserves this position because she painted honestly and brutally. She painted her memorable Jewish-Austrian-Spanish-Mexican face, single eyebrow and slim moustache in stark honesty; she had many lovers of both sexes (when such a course of sex exploits was practically unknown); she grabbed her Mexicanity with a fierce pride and ferocity that would not be in vogue until decades after her death (Kahlo was born in 1907 and died in 1954) and yet during her life she was just the wife of a very famous Mexican muralist and a champagne Communist who partied with the Fords and Rockefellers while marching with the workers down the wide avenues of Mexico City. It is thus ironic that it is Kahlo, whose astonishing life and unique paintings are now the subject of lawsuits between governments and collectors, has taken the limelight from her talented womanizer husband and is rightfully considered one of the best artists of the 20th century, period. This is THE BOOK about her.

Seminal Study on Enigmatic Personality
This is an extremely important, long overdue and commanding work on one of the most significant artistic personalities of the 20th century. The author, Hayden Herrera, is perhaps one of the few best qualified writers to present this indepth, intense penetration into the tumultuous life and work of such a complex figure in the art world. Frida Kahlo, as readers/viewers in the United States by now are aware, created some of the most unconventionally brilliant --even shocking works of arts the world has seen. Herrera's impeccable scholarship and research skills are impressive and at the same time delicately compassionate and vibrant. The movie version, by the way, was wonderful and Salma Hayek was amazing in the lead role. Thank you Hayden; thank you Frida! Absolutely spectacular subject.

Alan Cambeira
Author of AZUCAR! The Story of Sugar (a novel)

Stranger than fiction
I once shared a house with many framed posters of paintings of the same woman. She had dark hair, her eyebrows met in the middle, and she was frequently surrounded by monkeys, strange plants, bones and blood. I thought she must be a Mexican actress, and that these were movie posters. But my Latina housemate explained that these fascinating prints were actually paintings -- self-portraits, in fact -- of a Mexicana artist named Frida Kahlo. She loaned me this book to read, and I stayed up all night, and all the next night, hanging with Frida and her horny husband Diego Rivera. When the book ended, I not only cried for her death, but I missed her like a friend. Kahlo, whose degenerative back problems placed her in constant pain, painted herself because, as she said, "I am all alone most of the time." Her style was at once realistic and symbolic; and sometimes she let loose on subjects other then herself, painting a friend's suicide, for instance, or a portrait of a dead neighbor child. She lived in in Mexico during the first half of this century, and, along with her famous husband, rubbed shoulders with movie stars, Communists, art dealers and Leon Trotsky. She was known as a long-suffering wife of a man who had trouble keeping his pants on (but was the most revolutionary artist of his time); a painter; an entertainer; a hostess; bi-sexual; severely physically challenged; a Mexican patriot; she painted (many paintings are reproduced in this book); wrote letters; gave speeches; traveled; and, always, suffered. While this may sound grim, she was dearly beloved and respected in her time, and even moreso now, as much for her colorful lifestyle and outrageous sense of humor as for the truth and drama of her art. This biography is academic enough for the serious historian, and entertaining enough for most adults, particularly those with an interest in art and Mexican culture. Once you "know" Frida, you will never forget her, and here is an excellent introduction to a truly si! ngular artist and woman.