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55 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stranger than fiction, April 15, 1998
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.
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43 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Seminal Study on Enigmatic Personality, November 18, 2003
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)
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47 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Best Book on Frida Kahlo, July 16, 2000
One cannot live in the modern world without regularly encountering self-portrait images of the beautiful and tragic Frida Kahlo. Whether on coffee mugs, t-shirts, posters, or Mexican artifacts, Frida's exquisite face with its darkly joined eyebrows and beribboned hair is immediately familiar to most observers, even if they do not know who she was. Yet Frida Kahlo's popularity in the twentieth century can be wholly attributed to her brilliance. Unlike the work of most modern artists, almost all of her 200 paintings depict realist, surrealist, and primitive self-portraits symbolizing the concerns and agonies of her life. Hayden Herrera's fine biography is still, seventeen years after its publication, the champion text on one of the most important, original, and phenomenal painters of our time. Frida was born in 1910 (the year the Mexican Revolution began)to a Mexican mother and German father in the same cobalt blue house in Coyoacan, a suburb of Mexico City, where she later worked and shared her life with the great muralist Diego Rivera. Ironically, it is the house where her life also ended. Today it is a museum, open to the public and still festooned with her beautiful collections of retablos, pottery, and Mexican folk art. Frida's life was consumed by pain as a result of suffering polio at age 6 and a bus/trolley collision as a teenager when, thrown from the bus, she was gored by a steel rail. Frida spent most years of her life bedridden and in body casts (which she also painted)after some 30 surgeries meant to alleviate her suffering. Throughout her life,and even while prone in a bed with a mirrored canopy, she painted herself because of the focus created by chronic pain and said, "I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone." Her self-portraits suggest deep meanings as her face is always encircled with images derived from her physical and psychological life. The paintings are vibrant and, typical of many of her women contemporaries' works, tiny. Hayden Herrera's book presents a comprehensive life study of the great artist, incorporating photographs, diaries, letters, painting reproductions, eye witness accounts, and local history and politics in the most readable, enjoyable, intelligent work available. An art historian, Ms. Herrera is thoroughly knowledgeable and writes beautifully, as well. One will be as engrossed by this book as by any great novel. Her work convincingly recreates the scenes from Frida's life and populates them with important contemporaries Frida knew and loved, including Andre Breton, Leon Trotsky, Tina Modotti, Pablo Picasso, and, of course, her own Diego Rivera who called her the greatest painter of our time. There isn't a more engaging biography available about Frida Kahlo (in second place is Herrera's other text, Frida Kahlo:The Paintings), and one need not be an art student to be enthralled by this work. Ms. Herrera's compassionate, energetic account will capture anyone who wonders just what Frida Kahlo was like--her inspirations, occupations, and truly vivacious approach to her one very painful and amazingly productive life.
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