An intimate self-portrait of one of the most renowned Mexican artists of the twentieth century, this beautiful book is “a visual document, engaging the eye with a volcanic profusion of penned-and-painted imagery” (New York Times).
For more than forty years, Frida Kahlo's personal diary remained hidden from public view. Filled with vivid paintings, handwritten reflections, poems, dreams, political thoughts, and deeply personal revelations, it offers a rare look inside the creative life of one of the world's most celebrated artists.
Now published in its entirety with an introduction from Carlos Fuentes and insightful commentary from art historian Sarah M. Lowe, Frida Kahlo’s amazing illustrated journal documents the last 10 years of her turbulent life. These passionate, often surprising, intimate records reveal many new dimensions in the complex personal life of this remarkable artist.
The 170-page journal contains the artist’s thoughts, poems, and dreams—many reflecting her stormy relationship with her husband, artist Diego Rivera—along with 70 mesmerizing watercolor illustrations. Her views of love, politics, and more come into sharp focus in a kaleidoscope of creativity and thought. In his introduction, acclaimed author Carlos Fuentes ties Kahlo’s images of pain, loss, mutilation, and transcendence to Mexico’s historic cycles of revolution and reaction.
Sprinkled with irony, black humor, even gaiety, and augmented with translations of the diary entries plus commentaries and photographs, her diary stands as a reminder of not only Kahlo’s formidable talent, but also her resilience and courage. The text entries, written in Frida’s round, full script in brightly colored inks, make the journal as captivating to look at as it is to read.
Her writing reveals the artist’s political sensibilities, recollections of her childhood, and her enormous courage in the face of more than 35 operations to correct injuries she had sustained in an accident at the age of 18. This intimate portal into Frida Kahlo's life is sure to fascinate fans of the artist, art historians, and feminist scholars alike.