Customer Reviews

Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo

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Hayden Herrera has written an excellent portrait of the great artist Frida Kahlo, complete in thought and tender in describing a woman well lived.

Frida Kahlo is the ultimate survivor and represents women for their strength, tenderness, fierceness and suffering compassion. She lived during a time when women had few rights, especially Mexican women, she faced the dreadfulness of the Mexican Revolution in her early years, a bout with polio, a horrible bus accident that attempted to cripple her for life, an often unfaithful husband, criticism of her dreams, activism, accused Communism and many exciting adventures in life. She lived a true artistic life and her paintings represent the complicated nature of her inner soul. She loved hard and fought often, for her rights, her dreams and her man. While bed-ridden and suffering in the severest of agony she taught herself to paint, her body encased in a huge white cast, she painted to survive and reached the other end with a unique perspective on art. Her life and home were surrounded with color, a rainbow that never needed the promise of something golden at the end. She danced her own rhythm and never stopped walking her own path. This is a woman to be admired!

Herrera does an excellent job as the biographer of this phenomenally complicated woman. Her research is thorough and her suggestions entirely believable. You will be transported back in time into the life of a controversial woman who deserves every ounce of recognition that Herrera has given us.

This is an extremely important, long overdue and commanding work on one of the most significant artistic personalities of the 20th century. The author, Hayden Herrera, is perhaps one of the few best qualified writers to present this indepth, intense penetration into the tumultuous life and work of such a complex figure in the art world. Frida Kahlo, as readers/viewers in the United States by now are aware, created some of the most unconventionally brilliant --even shocking works of arts the world has seen. Herrera's impeccable scholarship and research skills are impressive and at the same time delicately compassionate and vibrant. The movie version, by the way, was wonderful and Salma Hayek was amazing in the lead role. Thank you Hayden; thank you Frida! Absolutely spectacular subject.

Alan Cambeira
Author of AZUCAR! The Story of Sugar (a novel)

The are many good books on the market that show some of Frida's best work and many that have a good overview of her life as the daughter of Wilhelm Kahlo and the "on and off wife" of the famous mural painter Diego Rivera.

What sets this book out from the multitude is the attention to detail. There are actual correspondences from and to Frida. Also many things that may be glossed over are covered well enough that you feel you were there.

I originally say the movie based on this book "Frida" (2002) with Salma Hayek. Many of the references in the movie were not covered even in the extensive commentaries. The book also has the time to cover the background of Frida's parents, grandparents, her friends and their relatives. We know about her trolley accident but not that much about her bout with polio.

The plates, some in color others of monochrome photos are placed on groups but referenced through out the book. Agree the descriptions they can be appreciated for not only themselves but what they meant to Frida and her friends. We also get a small glimpse of Mexico before and after the revolution.

This biography is a complete, engaging 440-page effort of sheer reportage. Herrera, an art historian and curator, has also written a book on Kahlo's art, and books on Mary Frank and Matisse, and you can see evidence of her thoroughness on every page. The book traces Kahlo's life by setting up the lives of her parents (her father was an Austrian immigrant to Mexico) all the way to her death and funeral with great detail. As Herrera follows the path of Kahlo's life, she includes letters to and from Kahlo, Kahlo's journal excerpts (illustrations, words and poems) and explicates Kahlo's art as it becomes relevant to the storyline of her life, either because paintings were done around the time of narrative points or because they illustrate incidents or themes in Kahlo's life. There are two color-plate sections and two black-and-white photo/painting sections to which the reader may refer.

Frida's life is certainly compelling, and Herrera doesn't need to resort to emotional language or hyperbole to make her interesting -- and, thankfully, she doesn't. The narrative is quite matter-of-fact, and illustrated with the subjects' own words, one feels that one can get to know Frida, and her husband, Diego Rivera, pretty well, for being somewhat removed from them (at least I feel that way living in the twenty-first century in Arkansas). The book incorporates the commonly known facts of Frida's life -- her devastating tram accident as a high-schooler in which she was impaled on a shaft of metal handrail, her turbulent and deep connection with and TWO subsequent marriages to Diego Rivera, her Mexicanista loyalties and sensibilities, her affair with Trotsky, her personal flamboyance and her great talent -- with the over-arching idea of Frida's alegría -- or happiness, joy -- in the face of her many hardships. As one of her friends said, Frida was a woman who "lived dying." Her many health problems and her problematic and sometimes painful relationship with Rivera were great obstacles to her, but her flamboyant alegría appears throughout her life as a constant, a will to enjoy, to overcome.

I think what the book offers most is Frida's personality, explicated as carefully and well as the paintings, and the effort helps inform the viewer's assessment and response to her work. Using Kahlo's own words often, Herrera allows Frida to tell us herself her reactions to incidents, events, her successes, her health problems.

She writes to her dear friend and medical adviser, Dr. Eloesser, in the United States when she is struggling with the decision to amputate her increasingly problematic foot: "My dearest Doctorcito: [The doctors] are driving me crazy and making me desperate. What should I do? It is as if I am being turned into an idiot and I am very tired of this f---ing foot and I would like to be painting and not worrying about so many problems. But, it can't be helped, I have to be miserable until the situation is resolved..."

This passage is emblematic of Kahlo, mixing her crass language with her charming endearments to her friends, her concern for her health and her resignation to the situation, "it can't be helped..." She often curses, refers to her reader as "kid" and to money as "dough," in English.

Herrera points out points at which Kahlo is not completely forthcoming with truthful details, for instance her age, the length of time she spent hospitalized at various stages, and her changing view on whether she was a Surrealist painter or not. She also illustrates Kahlo's changes in terms of the political situation of the international Communist party, her views about Trotsky, and her public vs. private comments on Diego's never-ending philandering.

In a book on Kahlo, these life details are relevant to her art because her art is confessional and personal. She's a "Sylvia Plath" of painting and mines her life and emotions for subjects until the end. Not long before she died, she had resolved her priorities, telling a friend, "I only want three things in life: to live with Diego, to continue painting, and to belong to the Communist party."

The people around her were deeply important to Frida Kahlo, and to the end of her life, she adored her friends, wrote winning and charming, caring notes to them, and wanted them around her at the end. Her love of others plays itself out in her political beliefs; she toured the world as an artist, but she drew her subjects and methods from Mexicanista traditions, and popular as well as pre-Columbian culture. Her personal illustrations are appealing because of that understanding of others, and Herrera's sound biography renders Kahlo's work and life even more poignant and remarkable. It's a good book. I recommend it.

(I do wish that this book had Frida Kahlo's own art or a photo of her on the cover, rather than a photo of Salma Hayek as Frida Kahlo.)

The greatest compliment one could offer a biographer is that she has brought to life her subject with honesty and insight. Well, I offer this compliment to Hayden Herrera. It is supreme understatement for me to observe that the Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo, was a complex person filled with great contradictions. Yet, through liberal use of Frida's letters coupled with Herrera's own insightful analysis of her painting, "Frida" brings this great artist to life for us to bask in her brilliance, energy and strength. "Frida" is one of the most remarkable, illuminating and fulfilling biographies I have ever read. I highly recommend this magnificent book.

I liked this book alot. It gave great details about her life from the begining to end. I thought that it got a little wordy sometimes, like the author was trying to prove how much she knew. But other than that it was an excellent book.

Frida Kahlo was a 'personality' in the truest and strongest sense of the word. She lived for less than 50 years (1907-1954) but cast a wide swath through the artistic, political, historical, and revolutionary times of her brief era. Born of German/Mexican heritage in Mexico City, her early years were influenced by the Mexican revolution and polio. Her life was changed forever when she was severely injured in a trolley car accident: a steel handrail pierced her body, and she was broken in every sense of the world. During her long convalescence, she lay on her back and began to paint self-portraits. Eventually, she joined the Communist party, was introduced to Diego Rivera - and thus began the secone life-changing experience. Rivera, 41yo and already famous, captivated her - and was simultaneously captivated. They soon married, and in spite of probably one of the most tumultuous relationships within the history of artistic and volatile couples, they remained devoted to each other (in their own fashion) till Kahlo's premature death.
Life wasn't perfect for Frida Kahlo, but no one can say she didn't give it her best shot.

A very definitive and excellent book about "Frida". I couldn't
put it down. Very thorough account of her life.

This book is a wonderful biography. Hayden Herrera's clever and vibrant writing really captures Frida's personality, and its because of this that the book strays from conventional biographiness. A wonderful read, I recommend it. Not to mention, once you're hooked on Frida, you never return.

*note* this book is the basis for the spectacular movie starring Salma Hayek (as seen on cover of book) as Frida.

I loved this biography principally because the author seemed very passionate AND knowledgeable about the topic. Frida was a one-of-a-kind artist and person and this is a humane account of her work, her relationships and her beliefs. One reviewer found the diary entries and letters tedious- I found their inclusion necessary to uncovering the psychology of an artist. I loved that Herrera combines scholasticism with compassion. This is a necessary addition to your collection if Frida is an artist you respect.