Customer Reviews

Frida Kahlo: The Still Lifes

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I anxiously awaited for the publication of this book because it's focus is on the Still Life paintings. Up until now, not much has been said about the Still Lifes because in general, they are more difficult to read and interpret and quite often the real meaning was known only to Kahlo herself. I was curious about this book because it consists of 175 pages and I wasn't sure what could be said about the some 40 Still Lifes that would take that many pages.

I consider a Still Life to be a painting or drawing of a bowl of fruit, vase of flowers, food, etc. For the purpose of this book, the author, Grimberg, expands the meaning of "Still Life" to include just about everything Kahlo did. Although the main focus is the traditional Still Life, some 30 of them pictured and discusses in this book, there are also Kahlo portraits, self-portraits and some of her other surreal works, drawings and sketches.

The book begins with a VERY brief forward by the Kahlo "Guru", Hayden Herrera. The text in this book is not limited to just a discussion of Kahlo's Still Life paintings. It begins with a history of Still Life paintings dating back to the Middle ages. Throughout the book it also discusses and displays works by Kahlo's famous husband Diego Rivera. It also includes a lot of in-depth biographical material...some of which is related to the discussion of the paintings and information I have not read before.

There are 45 full color images of Kahlo's works...30 of which are the traditional Still Lifes. The quality of these images is some of the best that I've ever seen. It also contains several black/white photos and a few in color...some of which I have not seen before.

This book truly is the first book by anyone to give an in-depth discussion of Kahlo's Still Life paintings. That's what makes it different from all the other Kahlo books and what makes it worth adding to your collection of Kahlo books. You won't be disappointed by this one.

Frida Kahlo painted some 40 still lifes, compared to the some 80 portraits for which she is known. Despite the difference in subject matter, her still lifes are as recognizable as her portraits. The still lifes display the same bright colors, which almost seem to shock they are so bright and unexpected. And with the still lifes, there is the rough collage compositional style, often including expressionistic forms and a seemingly careless mix of images. The still lifes, too, have Kahlo's surrealist aspects. Her paintings are recognizable for their mix of influences, imagery, and stark, though ambiguous statement.

Still lifes were not a way for Kahlo to distance herself from her artistic subject by the challenge of somewhat idiosyncratic, but nonetheless basically realistic reproduction or a tone of contemplation as with the still lifes of many painters. She put herself into her paintings of watermelons, bananas, grapefruit, flowers, corn, and other such subjects as much as she did in her self-portraits and portraits of others. There are the colors, the almost inventive colors; the unnatural arrangement, the mix of shapes often seeming riotous or incongruous, and the stray surrealistic touches. In Kahlo's still lifes, coconuts have tears coming from eye-like parts of their husks; a Mexican flag in planted in a watermelon, tropical birds are present.

Kahlo's still lifes "are as reflective of her internal reality as are her self-portraits," writes Grimberg, a psychoanalytic art historian who is one of the authors in the recently-published Frida Kahlo - Song of Herself. The artist's internal reality was colored mostly by "her struggle to master the fearing of loneliness and of confronting death." Along with giving biographical background on Kahlo and examining the tensions and hopes in her relationships as these topics shed light on Kahlo's paintings, Grimberg ties together details of Kahlo's life and both objects and qualities of particular still life paintings. With respect to the coconuts with tears, for instance, the author explains that the Spanish title "Lagrimas de coco" of one painting with such coconuts is a play on the Spanish "lagrimas de cocodrilo" for "crocodile tears." Kahlo hung the painting by her bed after it was returned by the woman physician who had commissioned it. It appears it a photograph of Kahlo in her bed shortly after she had one of her legs amputated. Grimberg draws the connection that the weeping coconut represents Kahlo's mood. And even in such a somber mood from her realization of her diverse, chronic health problems requiring painkillers and tranquilizers, Kahlo expressed her wry humor in the word play connected with the painting. Over and over, Grimberg's critiques and insights bring together biographical, artistic, temperamental, psychological, and psychoanalytical material to shed light on the complexities of Kahlo's personality, origins and subjects of her paintings, and the connections between these.

Though limited in scope, this "Frida Kahlo - The Still Lifes" contains material, analysis, and also pictures of art works which bring a fuller understanding of the perennially-appealing, beguiling Kahlo.

A Mexican painter and a woman in a male dominated culture, Frida Kahlo's life was as colorful, complex, and unconventional as her art. In "Frida Kahlo: The Still Lifes", psychoanalytic art historian Salomon Grimberg showcases with commentary forty of Kahlo's still life paintings in a seminal study of a portion of her work which reveals new perspectives and understandings of her personal and creative processes as an artist. Each work of art is beautifully reproduced in full color. The informed and informative text is enhanced with p0ersonal photographs. The result is a seminal contribution to the study of Kahlo's art that is a very strongly recommended addition to personal, academic, and community library Art History reference collections. Also very highly recommended for scholars and admirers of Frida Kahlo's iconoclastic life and art are two previously published works by Salomon Grimberg: "Frida Kahlo: Das Gesamtwerk (1988) and "I Will Never Fort You: Frida Kahlo To Nikolas Muray (2004).

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

In this book, which has been described in the publisher's marketing material as "groundbreaking" and "indispensable," child psychiatrist and psychoanalytical art historian Grimberg, who has written extensively on the popular Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) [Frida Kahlo (1988); Frida Kahlo: Song of Herself (2008); I Will Never Forget You: Frida Kahlo and Nickolas Muray (2006))], publishes the first detailed examination of the artist's still lifes. Having completed about 200 paintings during her short lifetime, 80 or so of which were known to be self-portraits, Kahlo also painted a significant number of still lifes, about 40 of which are documented. Here Grimberg closely scrutinizes and interprets Kahlo's still lifes, some of which only recently have come to light, in terms of her emotional states and relates them to her private feelings or "musings," positing that the artist oftentimes projected her thoughts onto the objects she was painting. Grimberg maintains that unlike her self-portraits which served as means for representing how Kahlo wanted to be seen and remembered, Kahlo's still lifes are "hermetic" and "harder to read." According to the author, Kahlo's still lifes functioned as "visual representations" of the artist's "struggle to master the fear of loneliness and of confronting death." Grimberg concludes that throughout her life, Kahlo suffered from "separation anxiety" and that this disorder is reflected in her life and works. While Grimberg's interpretations of Kahlo's still lifes oftentimes are arresting and convincing, his predominantly psychoanalytical viewpoint subverts other methodologies that could have been used to further decode Kahlo's complex masterpieces. Chronologically organized and written as a scholarly essay rather than a monograph, this well-documented publication with end notes and a bibliography lacks chapter and topic headings that would have aided readers. Also, Grimberg's psychoanalytical jargon oftentimes remains to be explained. Otherwise beautifully illustrated, presented, and conceived, this expert study provides a strong foundation for futher study and research. Not the last word on its subject, it nevertheless will prove to be significant, useful, and popular. Highly recommended for academic and large public library book collections as well as for students, scholars, museum professional, and other interested readers.