Feminist icon, symbol of Mexican culture, political activist, innovative artist... Discover the many facets of Frida Kahlo, a woman who transformed her afflictions into an inexhaustible and powerful body of work. This introductory volume presents many of her bold and striking works, accompanied by notes on her turbulent life that will help you understand the bold and defiant gaze she painted in her self-portraits.

Suffering and passion

The original and intimate art of Mexico's most famous painter.

The captivating images created by Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) are, in many ways, the manifestation of trauma. She suffered a near-fatal car accident at the age of 18, numerous health problems, a turbulent marriage and several miscarriages that prevented her from having children, yet she was able to transform all her afflictions into revolutionary art.
In her real and metaphorical self-portraits, Kahlo gazes boldly at the viewer, refusing to be a passive victim and weaving symbols of her experience into a hybrid language of surreal life: hair, roots, veins, vines, tentacles and fallopian tubes. Many of her works also explore communist political ideals, which Kahlo shared with Rivera. The artist described her paintings as "the most sincere thing I could do to express what I feel inside and outside my being."
This book offers a comprehensive survey of Kahlo's work, uncovering her inexhaustible determination as an artist and her importance as a painter, feminist icon and pioneer in Latin American culture.

About the author

Andrea Kettenmann studied art history in Göttingen and Hamburg before joining the Department of Art History at the University of Hamburg. She is the author of numerous publications on Frida Kahlo and has contributed to various exhibitions and catalogues. She works as an art historian in Mexico City, where she has lived for many years.

Publisher: Taschen