- Publisher
- Harper Perennial
- Published
- 1983
- Shelf
- culture: Latin America
- ISBN
- 9780060916121
Latin America
Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo
Hayden Herrera
The biography that recovered Kahlo, written before the face was on anything.
Why read it
Herrera was working in the late seventies, when Kahlo was filed as Diego Rivera's wife. The book reads the paintings against the life carefully enough that you stop seeing symbols and start seeing decisions: why that scale, why that frame, why the retablo format for a hospital bed. It is also a useful corrective. The merchandise version of Kahlo has very little to do with the painter in here.
Why own it
It is the source almost everything since has drawn on, and it is a genuinely good read, which most foundational art biographies are not.
Who it is for
Anyone who has used her face on a moodboard and never looked at a painting.
Opens a search on AbeBooks, a network of independent and antiquarian sellers, which is where a good part of this shelf has to be found, because it is out of print.
Read next
Chosen because they argue with this one, not because a machine noticed they share a category.
