Frida Kahlo: A Brief Summary

The excerpt of this biography focuses on artist Frieda Kahlo's rise to fame in the 1930's international art scene as she creates her largest and most acclaimed portfolio of work, containing many styles that are attributed by the author to each be influenced by a different lover. The author explores Kahlo's rapidly changing artistic style and themes in her works as she embarks on a streak of passionate relationships with topical artistic figures of the 30's who to Schaefer would serve as muses for Kahlo as she commenced her ascent into history. Schaefer writes of Frida Kahlo's life and art by chronological order of her romances, and remains unbiased about her relationships, focusing more on Kahlo emotional state according to her diaries, portraits
Kahlo returns to Mexico vindicated as she sees her intimate and isolated classical-modernist style at the foci of galleries throughout the West, before continuing to tour the Western art scene without Rivera by her side. Her rise serves as a contrast to her estranged husband's once in-demand large-scale murals and as her art evolved she kept her canvases small. Far from Rivera in the United States she finds herself pursued by two handsome artists; sculptor Isamu Nagochi and photographer Nikolas Muray both of with whom she begins a romantic tryst. She is featured in both their works and they find themselves muses for her gallery opening pieces. Her self-portraits and paintings during this dual romance lead to Kahlo's evolution from a more austere painter to one who had , "Images of desire beginning to burn in the lush foliage of her paintings,". She opted to tour despite medical issues to gallery openings on a stretcher, proving she gained a new found passion for art, with her new found romances. As she continued to tour Rivera sponsored historical communist figurehead Leon Trotsky and his wife for asylum in Mexico
Reconciled with her sister, estranged from Rivera, pursued by the duo Nagochi/Muray, and having Trotsky at her beck Kahlo unveils her most formidable of works as a parting gift to her relationship with her Soviet love. On Trotsky's birthday Kahlo gifted him with self portrait wherein she combined her unsmiling face with the clothing and backdrop themed around the vibrancy of Mexico City, "this is a full length celebration of Frida in all her glory...'For Leon Trotsky, with all my affection, I dedicate this painting,'... he was left with this very personal memento that he kept hanging in his study until the day he died". Kahlo dedicated herself to painting full-time after ending her relationship with Trotsky. Themes of body distortion and hopelessness cloaked all her following self-portraits, showcasing her isolated state of mind. As her erratic relationship with Rivera continued Kahlo's paintings debuted in Paris attracting the attention of the Louvre with Surrealist themes. The beginning and painful cessation of her various relationships continued to inspire Kahlo, as her organic progression through various art styles influenced by the men in her life led to her worldwide