Frida Kahlo: An Open Life

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Through a friendship formed at the end of Frida Kahlo's life, Raquel Tibol, the noted Mexican art historian, learned of the artist's incredible life story. Kahlo's rich spiritual life, her development as an artist, her struggle with illness, and her politics are woven into this engrossing story of a painter who is being discovered anew. Reviews of Kahlo's work, excerpts from her journal, and firsthand accounts give the book an exceptionally personal tone that will embrace Kahlo fans and uninitiates alike.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Tibol, a Mexican art critic, befriended Frida Kahlo in 1953, a year before her death. She portrays the Mexican painter as a strangely beautiful woman, an artist whose ``pitiless immersion in the subconscious'' yielded a ``stern and tragic surrealism'' with roots in Mexican folklore and photorealist painting. Originally published in Spain in 1983 and now ably translated into English for the first time, this sometimes sketchy yet intimately revealing biography splices the author's impressions, excerpts from Kahlo's journals, letters to her husband Diego Rivera, interviews, medical records and oral testimony by Kahlo. A bus accident in which she was involved at age 18 made the painter's life an ordeal of constant physical suffering. Tibol probes the spiritual strength that enabled Kahlo to rebel against adversity. In her view Kahlo was maternal toward the obsessive, childish Rivera, yet their marriage was nevertheless one of mutual nourishment, growth and support. Kahlo's frank discussions with Tibol about the psychosexual symbolism in her paintings makes this a valuable source for those who want to understand her art. Photos. (Apr.)

KLIATT

Many people are familiar with the extraordinary art of Frida Kahlo, a 20th-century Mexican artist. Her work is iconographic. Many of her paintings are self-portraits and intensely personal. The implacable gaze under her heavy black brows challenges the viewer to look away. The beautiful Mexican costumes and fantastical settings hint at a vivid personality. The author conducted a series of extensive interviews with the artist a year before her death in 1954. For the next 28 years, using these interviews, letters and journals written by Kahlo, and interviews with family and friends, Tibol wrote articles about the artist for various publications, mostly Mexican cultural journals. From these articles, which include a great deal of verbatim material, comes this quirky and sympathetic biography. Tibol's vocabulary is sometimes as enigmatic as Kahlo's art. At the age of 18, Kahlo suffered a serious accident that required many painful and not entirely successful operations over the course of her life. She rarely was without pain. She married Diego Rivera, one of Mexico's most famous artists, when she was 22 and an art student. Rivera was 20 years older. They were part of a revolutionary group of Communist intellectuals in Mexico whose sympathies for various Red factions ebbed and flowed before and after WW II. Kahlo traveled widely with her husband and indeed her talent was recognized outside Mexico before she gained respect in her native country. She was labeled a surrealist by Andre Breton, the spokesperson for that movement: Tibol is indignant about this pigeonhole. Some questions the reader might have about Kahlo, such as her fabled relationship with Leon Trotsky before he was murderedin Mexico, are left unanswered. On the other hand, a priceless interview with Rivera reveals how one artist views the peculiar talents of another. In a long interview with Kahlo about her husband and mentor, Tibol quotes, "when seeing him naked, one thinks immediately of a childish frog standing on his hind legs." The interviews with Kahlo and Rivera reveal their intelligence and their devotion to each other's art and to each other. It is these personal revelations that explain Tibol's outrage when the body of Rivera is not buried with Kahlo's, as she maintains he intended. The book, while by no means a complete or objective biography, adds much to our understanding of the exotic art of Frida Kahlo. High school and college students will appreciate finding this on the shelves. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 1993, Univ. of New Mexico Press, 230p, 21cm, 92-34145, $14.95. Ages 16 to adult. Reviewer: Penelope Power; Libn., Garrison Forest Sch., Garrison, MD, July 2000 (Vol. 34 No. 4)

Library Journal

Rekindled interest in the life of Frida Kahlo is in full force. Nevertheless, this biography is a useful addition to the numerous books that have come out in the past seven years (e.g., Martha Zamora, Frida Kahlo: The Brush of Anguish , LJ 1/91; Hayden Herrera, Frida Kahlo: The Paintings , LJ 5/15/92). For one thing, it is written by a respected Mexican art critic and friend of Kahlo. For another, it adheres closely to source material such as diaries, letters, and exhibition catalogs. It is refreshing to note that unlike many publications, the book does not focus on the sexual behavior of the artist or her husband, Diego Rivera. Instead, the reader is given a generous dose of Kahlo's political and artistic views. Unfortunately, this is sometimes done at the expense of pleasurable reading. An inexpensive counterbalance from 1983 now in English.-- Susan M. Olcott, Columbus Metropolitan Lib., Ohio