Diary of Frida Kahlo

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0810981955 ISBN 13: 9780810981959

Publisher: Harry N. Abrams, 1998

Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) kept a remarkable diary revealing the passion and strength of the final ten years of her anguished life. This volume is a facsimile which includes her own brightly coloured paintings and drawings.

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

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.