"Frida in America" describes the life and work of artist Frida Kahlo. The book melds biographical information about her life with analysis of her paintings and the underlying political and national scene. Frida's stormy relationship with her husband Diego made her life interesting but also difficult. The book is well-researched, with many endnotes and bibliographic information. The material for the book is taken from letters and other source material.

I found this book to be quite dense, and it seemed to skip around quite a bit, which made it difficult to follow for me. I would have liked a time line for her life to aid in following through the book. Readers seeking a comprehensive biography with analysis of her art will enjoy this extensive work.

I received this book from the publisher and from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own. ( )

Frida!

Frida Kahlo. I love her work, her ideas, and the colorfulness of her personality. And yes, when I've visited Mexico I've picked up some wonderful pieces of fun jewelry that represent her, kitsch or not. I enjoy wearing something that harkens to the talented and revolutionary soul Frida was in oh so many ways.
This book covers the years Frida spent in the United States and how that influenced her aesthetically and politically. Celia Stahr has captured the person of Frida.
One idea that struck me was that, 'the duality of life for the Aztecs, as for Frida, was a bringing together of opposites. “Everything is all and one."' Added to this was that that "notion of duality remained rooted in the land, and it shaped Frida’s psyche," and is reflected in her work. In its unpacking, a foundational concept about Frida and her creative spirit.
Adding relevant art works or photographs would have enhanced the production, but despite this, Stahr's quite eloquent work about Frida is very readable.

A St. Martin's Press ARC via NetGalley ( )

In 2015, I saw the Detroit Institute of Art (DAI) exhibition Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit. I knew Diego Rivera from the DIA court murals but I had known little about Frida Kahol. Reading Frida Kahol in America by Celia Stahr, specifically about Kahlo's time in Detroit, I could clearly remember her painting of her miscarriage in Henry Ford Hospital. We listened to the story on headphones and studied the unforgettable painting.

Although the exhibit included works by Rivera, it was Kahlo's that stuck in my mind. Rivera's Flower Seller was more accessible, 'prettier', but Kahlo's self-portraits grabbed my attention--those eyes, so direct and almost challenging, the self-confidence and self-acceptance revealed.

Stahr shares that many who knew both Rivera and Kahlo said Kahlo was the better artist. She stood in the shadow of her husband's charismatic personality, diminished by the press, struggling to develop her artistic voice.

Kahlo was in her early twenties when she married the older, famous artist, and only twenty-three when the arrived in America. Her life had already been eventful, suffering polio, scoliosis, spina bifida, and a life-threatening bus accident when she was a teenager. Pain accompanied her every day. She was a Communist, she challenged society's prescribed sex roles, and had suffered heartbreak as a spurned lover.

It was so interesting to see American during the Depression through Kahlo's eyes. The wealthy industrialists were her husband's patrons--they paid the bills. They also represented a privileged class Kahlo found revolting.

Kahlo wrote to her mother, "Witnessing the horrible poverty here and the millions of people who have no work, food, or home, who are cold and have no hope in this country of scumbag millionaires, who greedily grab everything, has profoundly shocked [us]."

Of course, I was very interested in the artists' time in Detroit. The city had been one of the hardest hit by the Depression with 50% unemployment. I was shocked to read about the Ford Hunger March. Ford had reduced salaries and laid off workers, and since the workers lived in Ford housing they became homeless as well. Four thousand marched in freezing weather to the gate of the Rouge River plant to be met by bullets and fire hoses, killing four people. River and Kahlo arrived a month after the event.

Stahr addresses each painting created by Kahlo, explaining the work and its symbolism in detail, including the self-portrait made for her estranged lover, the groundbreaking paintings about her abortion and the miscarriage that spurred a traumatic 'rebirth' as had her bus accident had when she was eighteen years old.

Stahr addresses the duality "at the root of Frida's sense of self," part of her "search for a unification of opposites, as the Aztecs and alchemists espoused."

Kahlo's deeply personal art defied convention, delving into female experiences never before depicted in art. In comparison, Rivera's masterpiece murals at the Detroit Institute of Art look to the past, glorifying the pre-Depression industrial worker and the scientists and entrepreneurs who created industry.

American industrialist millionaires were also aiding Hitler--Ford a known anti-semite, and oil companies supplying fuel and poisonous gasses to the Nazis.

After Detroit, the couple went to New York City where Rivera was to create a mural for the new Rockefeller Center; a battle over a patron's control of an artist's content played itself out and resulted in the mural being boarded up.

It could have happened in Detroit, but the scandalous murals drew records crowds to the DIA and turned around their finances.

"Love is the basis of all life," Stahr quotes Kahlo. Love of country, for friends and family, sexual love, for home. Her relationship with Rivera was conflicted, their love affairs rending their marriage, resulting in divorce and remarriage.

This is a revealing and deep study of Kahlo that truly educated me while engaging me emotionally with its subject.

I was given a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review. ( )