Frida KahloReviews

Autobiography of Frida Kahlo, illustrated

Multiple photographs, hand written entries

Great examples of her work

A remarkable combination of text and art. Selected pages of her diary explore her relationship to Diego Rivera, Communism, and art. Full color pages of the art and the original Spanish language text are followed by translation and commentary with line drawings of the art.

Frida's writing about her imaginary friend

Reading this collection of Frida's correspondence was revelatory! You see, other than my quick, but promising perusal of painter Eugene Delacroix's letters, I have never bothered to pursue letters as a kind of close reading: that has just changed! Here we have this distant, world class painter and a first-rate feminist saint, a personage already misted over by the fog of time and legend, when, suddenly, one can read her mail! What a charmer she was! A sweetheart! A basic, decent, down-to-earth, endearing woman who was a great friend, girl-friend, and wife, judging by her humorous and philosophical letters, filled with profanity, slang, endearments, with snatches of poetry and gossip. And living like this so courageously while enduring a world of physical pain and emotional torment (thank you Diego Rivera)! How I would have liked to have known her! (Disclosure: I have been to her house twice and, when asking for directions within her neighborhood, no one there knew who she was!) By the way, this volume is magnicent to hold:, its paper, binding, marginalia, and notations are a pleasure to peruse!

Lendo este diário pude entender porque alguns são relutantes em aceitar Kahlo como ícone feminista, o caso é que a relação dela com Diego Rivera beirava à patologia, quer dizer, o tipo de paixão que ela sentia e demonstrava por Diego são comuns em garotas de 20 anos e aqui ela estava por volta dos 40 e soa como uma dependência emocional particularmente doentia partindo de uma mulher adulta.
Por outro lado, tirando essa questão desconcertante, ela ainda é um ícone feminista por sua resiliência perante tantas intempéries da ordem física e emocional, e a partir de todo esse sofrimento ela soube transformá-lo em arte, esta imensamente bem representada neste diário que teve toda sua magnitude editorial preservada nessa linda edição brasileira.

What an honor to read some of the private written and see the art in this journal. Her body of work is beautiful and startling. She was a great artist gone too soon.

Haunting and brilliant - much like the artist herself. I feel as though I've seen almost too much. An intimate portrait indeed.

Frida Kahlo was a fascinating, strong woman who I admire. Her rt work is not the "feel good" type, such as Monet or Renior, , but it is compelling and full of raw emotion. The things this woman went through are so harsh, from her accident, her multiple operations to her tumultuous marriage to Diego Rivera. All these things come to life in her art and in her personal diary. Her diary completely captivates me. It is so personal, as all good diaries are, that it really gives the reader a glimpse into the "real" Frida. A stunning book full of life, love, loss and anger. This is the heart and soul of Frida.

A rare square format paperback exhibition catalogue of the Lola Alvarez Bravo Travelling Exhibition, of black and white photos by Lola Alvarez Bravo of the famous Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, published by the Society of Friends of the Mexican Culture, Dallas Texas.

It contains a page of acknowledgements, and an introduction and interview by Salomon Grimberg, Curator of the Exhibition (which started in Dallas, and went to Washington D. C. and Albuquerque, New Mexico), followed by the catalogue of black and white photos.

Fifty black and white posed photographs of Mexico's most famous woman painter dressed in her famous Tejuana costume, in her home, in her studio, in her wheelchair, in her garden, with her dog, some paintings, etc., including a haunting shot of her cluttered studio following her death, dated 1954.

"Khalo's absence seems more palpable than the objects present. This is most evident in the photograph taken of the studio immediately following Kahlo's death. The wheelchair by the easel is empty, and Kahlo's self-portrait in which she is letting go of her crutches, remains unfinished," as Grimberg puts it in his Introduction.

Fifty intimate photographs in all, taken by another Mexican woman artist of considerable stature, some of quite startling tragic Mexican Romantic beauty, in the living tradition of the great 19th century Romantic-Symbolist photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, perhaps.

Mexicanismo Romantico...?

During the last ten years of her life Kahlo kept a journal, The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait, a vivid scrawling volume of sketches, poetry, letters and appeals that I have read and stared at over and over again. It is a diary like none other in the world of letters. Not the quiet, considered reflections of an artist or philosopher sitting at their desk at the close of the day. Not the safe haven where she might indulge her wit and write down all the things she thought, but did not say, to the company she kept. No, this is a document that seems to have been written in fits and starts, as though she put brush and pen to paper because she simply couldn’t help herself. Turning the facsimiled pages—reproduced in full color, every marred sketch and crossed out word intact—I felt like I wasn’t seeing writing at all, but a process of spontaneous combustion. (“The art of Frida Kahlo,” said Andre Breton, “is a ribbon around a bomb.”). . read full review

"Diego.
I ask you for violence, in the nonsense,
and you, you give me grace, your light
and your warmth.
I'd like to paint you, but there are no
colors because there are so many, in my
confusion, the tangible form
of my great love."

--Frida Kahlo to Diego Rivera

This is a stunning book. A wildly colorful record of Frida Kahlo's creativity, longing, passion, politics, pain, aspirations, fears and - of course - undying love for Diego Rivera. Frida's very heart and soul pour from every page.

The usual competent introduction with details of her life, followed by 80 gorgeous full-color plates of selections from her work.

What it's like to feel and see.

I think this is one of those books I need to read...