Frida Kahlo: The Camera Seduced
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,History & Criticism
Frida Kahlo: The Camera Seduced Details
From Library Journal The mythologizing of Kahlo continues with this compendium of photographic portraits of the Mexican painter, accompanied by a "memoir" by Poniatowska attempting to write as if she were Kahlo. The resulting essay is a singularly turgid bit of writing, surrounded by photos that have nearly all appeared in one of several recent biographies. Apparently striving to maintain the potency of the isolated image, the editors have gathered together detailed captions and photo credits in the book's final pages, forcing the curious reader to undertake a great deal of page-flipping to learn more about individual images. Kahlo was a person of transcendent beauty to the day she died, and without the artful photographs, the book would be bereft of any compelling content. While this endeavor is little more than a hiccup within a continuum of more well-rounded and intellectually rigorous titles on Kahlo, one can't help hoping that it does not represent a new direction in art historical study. Sara Lowe's Frida Kahlo ( LJ 5/15/92) is the preferred title.- Douglas F. Smith, Oakland P.L., Cal.Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. Read more About the Author Carla Stellweg has worked with Latin American art and artists for 25 years. In 1989, she founded the Carla Stellweg Latin American and Contemporary Art Gallery, which presents the works of emerging Latino artists. She lives and works in New York City.Elena Poniatowska was born in Paris in 1933 and is today one of Mexico's leading literary and intellectual figures. Novelist, essayist, and journalist, she was the first woman to win Mexico's prestigious National Journalism Award. Her novella, Dear Diego, Read more
Reviews
This book contains 60 B&W photographs of the legendary Frida Kahlo taken by some of the most famous photographers of the time: Ansel Adams, Lucienne Bloch, Lola & Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Imogen Cummingham, Frida's father Guillermo Kahlo, Nickolas Muray and others. The photos range from early childhood to her last days. A few of the photos I had not seen before but most of the photos in this book can be found in other more recent books on Kahlo. Although many beautiful color photographs of Frida were taken beginning in the late 1930s, none of them appear in this book....everything is in B&W.In the beginning pages of the book, Elena Poniatowska writes Frida's memoirs as though she were Frida. At the end of the book, Carla Stellweg writes an essay covering the high points of Kahlo's life and her turbulent marriage to the famous Mexican muralist, Diego Rivera. In the back of the book there is a detailed chronology as well as a description of each photograph. The focus of this book is on the photographs. Although there are a few photos of Kahlo's paintings, not much is mentioned about her art.