""My painting carries within it the message of pain"." Frida Kahlo--born in 1907 near Mexico City--learned about pain at a very early age. She contracted polio at six, and then at eighteen suffered serious and permanent injury to her right leg and pelvis in a terrible bus accident. Young and undaunted, she went on to fall in love with the great mural painter Diego Rivera at a time when their native Mexico was going through a period of thrilling political and cultural upheaval. Rivera and Kahlo were a legendary couple--both were impassioned, lifelong communists while fervently attached to traditional Mexican Indian culture, and both were driven by a relentless artistic ambition that surmounted all the dramas that plagued their marriage. Later, Frida became the friend and lover of Leon Trotsky. She was greatly admired by the Surrealists and sat for some of the greatest photographers of her day. Her art largely consisted of self-portraits, like the famous paintings "The Two Fridas" and "The Broken Column," though she also left many striking still-lives. In "Frida Kahlo: Painting Her Own Reality," Christina Burrus assesses Frida Kahlo's extraordinary work--a maelstrom of cruelty, humor, candor, and insolence reflecting the essence of a free, beautiful, courageous woman who concealed her physical pain behind peals of infectious laughter.

Born in Mexico in 1907, Frida Kahlo learned about suffering at an early age. The young and indomitable Frida met Diego Rivera, the great mural painter, when Mexico was at a great cultural and political crossroads. They formed a legendary partnership, with a strong attachment to Mexican folk art. This book traces her extraordinary life.[Bokinfo].

The riveting story of how three years spent in the United States transformed Frida Kahlo into the artist we know today "[An] insightful debut....Featuring meticulous research and elegant turns of phrase, Stahr’s engrossing account provides scholarly though accessible analysis for both feminists and art lovers." —Publisher's Weekly Mexican artist Frida Kahlo adored adventure. In November, 1930, she was thrilled to realize her dream of traveling to the United States to live in San Francisco, Detroit, and New York. Still, leaving her family and her country for the first time was monumental. Only twenty-three and newly married to the already world-famous forty-three-year-old Diego Rivera, she was at a crossroads in her life and this new place, one filled with magnificent beauty, horrific poverty, racial tension, anti-Semitism, ethnic diversity, bland Midwestern food, and a thriving music scene, pushed Frida in unexpected directions. Shifts in her style of painting began to appear, cracks in her marriage widened, and tragedy struck, twice while she was living in Detroit. Frida in America is the first in-depth biography of these formative years spent in Gringolandia, a place Frida couldn’t always understand. But it’s precisely her feelings of being a stranger in a strange land that fueled her creative passions and an even stronger sense of Mexican identity. With vivid detail, Frida in America recreates the pivotal journey that made Senora Rivera the world famous Frida Kahlo.

Frida Kahlo was one of the most famous female artists in the world. She survived polio as a child and a bus accident as a teenager, leaving her with pain and many medical problems. Fortunately, adversity also stirred a renewed interest in art. She taught herself to paint during her recovery, eventually becoming a respected and famous artist. Kahlo's interests in politics, Mexican culture and heritage, and the female experience have made her an icon to many people. Readers will learn about Kahlo's life and art through photographs and age-appropriate text in this intriguing volume.

This intimate account offers a new, unexpected understanding of the artist’s work and of the vibrant 1930s surrealist scene. In 1938, just as she was leaving Mexico for her first solo exhibition in New York, Frida Kahlo was devastated to learn from her husband, Diego Rivera, that he intended to divorce her. This latest blow followed a long series of betrayals, most painful of all his affair with her beloved younger sister, Cristina, in 1934. In early 1939, anxious and adrift, Kahlo traveled from the United States to France—her only trip to Europe, and the beginning of a unique period of her life when she was enjoying success on her own. Now, for the first time, this previously overlooked part of her story is brought to light in exquisite detail. Marc Petitjean takes the reader to Paris, where Kahlo spends her days alongside luminaries such as Pablo Picasso, André Breton, Dora Maar, and Marcel Duchamp. Using Kahlo’s whirlwind romance with the author’s father, Michel Petitjean, as a jumping-off point, The Heart: Frida Kahlo in Paris provides a striking portrait of the artist and an inside look at the history of one of her most powerful, enigmatic paintings.

The beautifully illustrated and utterly absorbing biography of one of the twentieth century's most transfixing artists Frida is the story of one of the twentieth century 's most extraordinary women, the painter Frida Kahlo. Born near Mexico City, she grew up during the turbulent days of the Mexican Revolution and, at eighteen, was the victim of an accident that left her crippled and unable to bear children. To salvage what she could from her unhappy situation, Kahlo had to learn to keep still so she began to paint. Kahlo 's unique talent was to make her one of the century 's most enduring artists. But her remarkable paintings were only one element of a rich and dramatic life. Frida is also the story of her tempestuous marriage to the muralist Diego Rivera, her love affairs with numerous, diverse men such as Isamu Noguchi and Leon Trotsky, her involvement with the Communist Party, her absorption in Mexican folklore and culture, and of the inspiration behind her unforgettable art.

See the world through Frida Kahlo's eyes and be inspired to produce your own masterpieces. Have you ever wondered exactly what your favorite artists were looking at to make them draw, sculpt, or paint the way they did? In this charming illustrated series of books to keep and collect, created in full collaboration with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, you can see what they saw, and be inspired to create your own artworks, too. In What the Artist Saw: Frida Kahlo, meet the famous Mexican painter. Learn all about how she experimented with different ways of painting herself, and how she channeled her experiences into her art. Have a go at producing your own self portrait! In this series, follow the artists' stories and find intriguing facts about their environments and key masterpieces. Then see what you can see and make your own art. Take a closer look at landscapes, or even yourself, with Vincent van Gogh. Try crafting a story in fabric like Faith Ringgold, or carve a woodblock print at home with Hokusai. Every book in this series is one to treasure and keep - perfect for budding young artists to explore exhibitions with, then continue their own artistic journeys. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York