In her research, the author, Hayden Herrera, amassed recollections of more than 70 contemporaries of Kahlo which she contacted. The 507-page tome has been unequaled since in its scope and extensive documentation. The detonator for the international explosion in Kahlo interest was the 1983 publication of Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, the first English-language account of her life.

Her philandering husband, muralist Diego Rivera, also hurt her emotionally. The artist suffered from congenital ailments, polio and a bone-shattering bus crash and underwent an estimated 32 surgeries in her lifetime. “(Kahlo) transformed her pain into art,” the museum’s director has said. Today, however, that venue ranks as a leading local tourist attraction, drawing about 600,000 people a year, many of them from abroad. At the time, the artist was largely unknown. Without knowing it, we had visited the Frida Kahlo Museum.

When the filmmaker came for us, her doctor friend and my fellow viewer said, “I don’t know about you art lovers, but I can tell you that the woman (the artist) was in a lot of pain.” The artwork lacked explanatory labels, leaving us ignorant of the creator’s background. We were the only ones there, as far as we could tell. Roaming the building, we saw paintings, dust-speckled furniture and horned paper-mâché figures. She had errands to run, so to occupy myself and a doctor friend, she dropped us off outside an old house with an enormous patio. Martin’s Press, 2020.įresh out of college in 1977, I traveled to Mexico City and met up with a filmmaker.

Frida in America by Celia Stahr