![]() ![]() These books, unfortunately, do little to move the study of Kahlo’s art in new directions.įrom the outset, the title of Stahr’s book Frida in America is problematic. Kahlo is an important artist, but many scholars have avoided serious inquiry into her work because her life story has so consumed the popular imagination that it has become difficult to distinguish the originality of her approach from the often-shocking content of the imagery. Knowledge of life events is crucial to interpreting any artist’s oeuvre - but Kahlo’s paintings have been perpetually and inextricably tied to her biography in ways that hamper evaluation of her contributions to the development of modernism in the Americas. While both books offer valuable new information about the artist’s life, their emphases on her love affairs and tragic personal circumstances perpetuate rather than challenge the biographical approach to understanding the artist’s work established by Herrera. Celia Stahr’s Frida in America: The Creative Awakening of a Great Artist examines the years Kahlo lived in the United States between 19 - and Marc Petitjean’s The Heart: Frida Kahlo in Paris addresses the brief period the artist spent in Paris in 1939. ![]() ![]() Each book focuses on a more limited time period than the comprehensive biography Hayden Herrera published in 1983. After an interlude of several decades, two new biographies of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo have recently appeared. ![]()
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