Frida Kahlo

This was a commissioned work and really the most shocking and interesting as it was a memorial for the death of Dorothy Hale it shows the whole suicide and the ending result in eerie way.

English author and head of the Education Section of the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, England did his homework and compiled some lovely plates not found in other Frida Kahlo books. The accompanying text in this oversized book is broken up into three sections that represent Frida's various art periods. The extensive introduction has the most information as he basically runs down the (low)highlights of Frida's tumultous life beginning with her early(polio) health problems, her traumatic accident, her marriages to Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, her lesbian affairs, her straight affairs, her deterioating health and ultimately, her death. Beginning with the section on Self Portraits we see many of her known and some lesser known photographs of her life and art pieces from private collections that apparently haven't made the exhibition rounds very much. Also included in this section are portraits of other people. These portraits cover three decades, beginning in the 1920's and extending to the 1950's. The section entitled Still Life is interesting because there are many included and since she seems to be most known for her self portraits it is nice to see this other side of the artist. Her still life work runs the gamut from the oridinary to the exquisite both in subject matter and presentation. Again the period covered is thesame decades previously mentioned but there are elements of her surreal period throughout. The final section is entitled Marginality and Modernism, it covers the same time periods but relies mostly on the 1930's and 1940's. Within this section many of her most "out there" pieces are included that some art critics labeled her Surrealism period. One of my personal favorites that I had the honor of seeing in an exhibition aa few years ago is included entitled "The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth(Mexico), Diego, Me, and Senor Xolotl," 1949. This is a magnificent oil on masonite from the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection. Frida is holding Diego like a baby while she and their dog are embraced by several hands representing the unknown universe with spacey visual representation in the form of clouds and the red planet split with earth tones and a dark night vision of the universe on the other half of the canvas that engulfs them surrounded by cactus motiffs with dangling roots. My description does no justice to this superb piece of art; you have to see it for yourself. I guess some people cut up a book like this to mount the pictures in small frames but I like to look at the totality of the book, without missing pages. There are 80 large-scale full-color plates for your enjoyment plus many black and white photographs of her and Diego. The fact that the pictures are so large is one of best things about this book as you can see the details of the pieces. A perfect book for anyone just starting out and getting aquainted with the works(she produced over 140 pieces) of Frida or for any level of interest. This is a great