Frida's BigBook
My adventures with the 624-page book, Frida Kahlo: The Complete Paintings
Sam came home from the library recently with the biggest book about Frida Kahlo I’ve ever seen. Suddenly I wanted to learn about her — again! By now I’ve read almost every word in Frida Kahlo: The Complete Paintings (but it’s mostly pictures).
You can mark your place with the attached pink satin ribbon. With 624 high-quality pages, the book weighs about twelve pounds. I can’t hold it on my lap, so it’s now open on the dining table, tilted up by a small flat pillow. I’m serious about this book because it’s so good.
The publisher’s online statement is an over-sized promotion. It promises,
this large-format XXL book allows readers to admire Frida Kahlo’s paintings like never before, including unprecedented detail shots and famous photographs. It presents pieces in private collections and reproduces works that were previously lost or have not been exhibited for more than 80 years, forming the most extensive study of Kahlo’s work and life to date.
It’s all true!
The book’s text links Kahlo’s life experiences to her paintings. But it also shows her awareness of the art world and of politics, both contemporary and historical.
The Table of Contents divides her life into five periods, from “The years of learning, 1925-1929” to “The will to continue painting right up to the end, 1947-1954”.
Part VI is “Kahlo’s diary and letters”, followed by “Biography”, “Frida and Diego”, “The Casa Azul” (a photographic personal visit), and a very readable illustrated Catalogue of Paintings.
The smallest work in the Catalogue is a self-portrait, 2” high by 1-5/8” wide.
The book says,
Portrait miniatures first appeared in the 16th century, in the royal courts of France and England. They were often given as tokens of love, meant for private enjoyment. This is the case with Kahlo’s miniscule self-portrait, which she presented to her great new love, the painter Josep Bartolí.
Pictures and text work together, back and forth. For instance, the Catalog at the end of the book tells the full story of this photograph:
As shown here, in 1941 Kahlo posed beside her unfinished Self-Portrait (Me and My Parrots) for the photographer Nickolas Muray. The Catalog says that her decade-long affair with Muray ended when she remarried Diego Rivera in 1940.
In the painting on the right, you see how she later changed the neckline of her blouse and her hands. By adding a cigarette, the text says, “she presents herself with assurance as an artist breaking into a male domain.”
The author also says this photograph above is a double self-portrait of the artist. To me, it’s also one of the photographer, and his relationship to his subject.
Throughout the book, because the pages measure 11¼ by 15½ inches, some of Kahlo’s portraits and self-portraits are almost life-size reproductions. I have to remind myself that behind her steady gaze lie years of nearly constant pain.
Her letters and diary pages also appear in a realistic size. You feel a personal connection, imagining yourself opening one of these envelopes.
Frida often closed her letters with a lipstick print, as she did on a note to Diego on a brown paper bank envelope under the words, “tu niña, Frida (Escrebame)” - “your girl, Frida (Write to me)”.
On page 395 I was surprised to find an actual personal connection to myself! There was a photograph of Frida and Diego with the American artist Arnold Blanch and his wife Lucile. I’ll explain.
In the 1960’s in Woodstock NY my father took part in a weekly poker game with other artists, and the name Arnold Blanch was familiar to me. So when I saw this photo, I realized I’m “three degrees of separation” from Frida Kahlo. If anyone is closer to her than this, please Comment below.
After I return this library book (it won’t fit in the book drop!), I want to keep the impression it gave me: that Kahlo centered her life among a jungle of complications. She did what she wanted, she expressed what she felt, and she worked at earning a living in the art world, through Rivera’s freely-shared connections.
One more discovery. In 1933 Frida wrote to Georgia O’Keeffe, who wasn't well. She said,
Please Georgia dear if you can’t write, ask Stieglitz to do it for you and let me know how you are feeling will you? … I would like to tell you everything that happened to me since the last time we saw each other, but most of them are sad and you mustn’t know sad things now. … I have been happy in many ways though. Diego is good to me …
She closes with,
P. S. That makes me four degrees of separation from Georgia O’Keeffe, just a small distraction from the real business of life!
Love this and her. I experienced a similar injury so have always felt a kinship in her art. And there's a great documentary on her on PBS now, "Becoming Frida Kahlo". Worth checking out!
I have a niece by marriage, herself an artist, who has shared with me her Frieda Kahlo passion--even dressing and making herself up to look like her for a special party she attended. She will enjoy this column! I had a momentary thought to give her this book as a gift...but 12 lbs. and 600+ pages is no spur-of-the moment purchase! But thanks also to Taschen books for doing these amazing kinds of books...and to a kind husband for schlepping home such a tome!