Frida Kahlo And Diego Rivera

by Isabel Alcantara, Sandra Egnolff

Diego Rivera once characterized Frida Kahlo as the first woman in the history of art who--with a directness and brutal clarity--focused on subjects exclusively to do with women. Late twentieth-century perceptions of Mexican art are now dominated by Kahlo, whose work has gained enormous popularity. Her stormy relationship with the painter Diego Rivera is mirrored in many of her stunning paintings, which also combine motifs of folk art with deeply personal self-portraits.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Biography, History

118 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1999

Reviews

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyable book. I liked how direct the telling of the couples life was. No flowery language just a direct telling of their lives.
This couple truly lived a sad but unique lifestyle.

[Aisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

now I want to read her diary so bad!!



*and Diego is a terrible person*

[Malbadeen · Rating 3 out of 5]

yea. I like her stuff. so what. shut up.
The quality of the prints in this book don't make you barf.
There's a painting I'd not seen before on page 63, that was cool. I'd be down with going to Paris and seeing it or whatever.

The writing was whatever and the bits of information that I didn't already know didn't exactly blow my mind but they didn't bore me either.

Now here are some Frida ramblings for you:

1. One time I was at a party and I met somebody that grew up near Frida Kahlo's house. Due to party festivities and free flowing spirits, I misunderstood this to said everything about the person and accidentally dated him for 2 years. Turns out free flowing spirits said everything about this person. oops!

2. I was recently at someone's house and picked up a book of Diego Rivera's art and when Frida Kahlo came up, that someone said something to the effect of "what's so great about Frida Kahlo? all she ever did was self portraits". In my head I told him he was a pretentious idiot and that all Proust ever talked about was his stupid cookie.*

3. When I was at the SFMOMA 3 years ago, there was necklace that was the thorne and the hummingbird and it was gooooorgeous and I think about that necklace a lot.

*Proust disclaimer: I'm sure Proust talked about a lot more than his "stupid cookie", truth is I've only read apx 20 pages of Proust (okay bigger truth is I've only *listened* to apx 20 pages of his stuff) but ignorance has never stopped me before and I don't see why it should now.

[Danielle Mcsummer]

A beautiful little book about the artistic and personal relationship between Kahlo and Rivera. I have always loved her works, and it was interesting to see a more in depth telling of her story outside of the movie "Frida". While she was truly a pained woman, most of her suffering was brought on through her obsession with Rivera. Nonetheless, this book is a pleasant read, adorned with copies of their art and photographs of their travels. I recommend to any art lover.

[James Kinsley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice little summary of Kahlo's life. Covers the facts, and focuses on her relationship with Rivera. The prose is uninspiring but the images are decent, containing photos of the couple and reproductions of Rivera's work as well as hers. For this reason, despite owning better books on Frida, I'll hang onto this one as well.

[aswang · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read for fans of the artist. There are a couple of little speed bumps stylistically, but this could be due to gaps in translation (not even sure if this was translated, I'm totally guessing). A comprehensive biography which catalogs a lot of her works, and aims to be quite sympathetic to her many varied pains. Viva la Frida!

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting story about the love and life of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. She died in July 1954 and Rivera said he described "her works as being the most vigorously rooted in Mexican folk art of all the Moderns."

She was plagued by health issues and her love for her husband, Diego. He had numerous affairs so she decided to do the same. She had many affairs and was bi-sexual and used art as her true picture of her feelings.

[Carrie Turner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredible artist. Loved seeing her work like this.

[JoJo · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good coverage of the two artists and their relationship, fine if you want to know the basics but no deep insight into them and their complex and interesting lives.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read it in one day. I checked it out of my local library. Loved it!

[Naomi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good summary/intro for those who don't know of Frida and Diego.

Okay refresher for those with extensive knowledge of Frida and Diego

[antonio C · Rating 3 out of 5]

7-/10

[Antonia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would have probably given more stars if it wasn't for the style of writing... Indisputably there is a brief history about the personal and artistic life of Frida, her deep and pernicious affection for Diego, photographs and some of their most famous art works. What I liked the most about the book is that each artwork is presented with short word depiction of its fragments, what they resemble or to what moment of Frida's life they correspond.
Although the writing is odd at times I would still recommend it better than the movie (Frida, 2002). Probably it will take you the same time to read it.

[M De · Rating 4 out of 5]

a pleasant surprise finding this in a book sale for about US$2.00! read it in its entirety in one sitting and then i was immediately moved to watch the frida movie again. must say, frida inspired my FRIDAy yesterday...

[Clover · Rating 3 out of 5]

Frida Kahlo's life is so interesting. Diego Rivera sounds like a jerk though.

[Carole Dent · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite comprehensive with wonderful colour plates but the writing/typesetting was highly suspect in some places

[Hamuel Sunter · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was a pleasure to see a survey of Kahlo's work (and Rivera's) but the writing was distracting. The sentences were loose and the whole thing was poorly copy-edited.