Frida in America by Celia Stahr
Review of Frida in America by Celia Stahr
Frida in America by Celia Stahr (2020). Published by St. Martin’s Press.
This was the book I never knew I needed right now, as I stumbled across it quite randomly. I found out my library didn’t actually sort the new biographies in the section I thought they did, so I wandered over to the correct section and immediately found this gem alongside the Warhol biography I’d always seen at my local Barnes & Nobles but had never bothered to pick up due to its price.
Naturally, I selected both of these books, despite them feeling like actual bricks in my hands, alongside a Tennessee Williams biography that was also brand new and calling out my name. I used to have an obsession with Frida Kahlo back in, like, freshman year of college when I thought I was cool and knew a lot about art (spoiler: I did not).
This book in particular does not go deep into the depth of her artwork, but I think there’s a specific target audience. Hardcore Frida fans that think they know a lot about her already may not be as interested in this one as they think.
Let’s begin this review.
This book documents the time Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo spent traveling across America, including all of their lovers’ spats and frustrations.
Or, if we’re going to be specific, all about Frida’s frustrations. You are going to get some Diego content because the two are simply too linked to completely untangle from each other. The portrait of Diego isn’t too flattering though if you’re into hating him, which I personally do not have a good opinion of him because of how he treated Frida.
The prologue begins in Detroit, which can be confusing to some readers because the actual Detroit chapter is much, much later. Frida and Diego did not go into Detroit after their adventures in New York City and San Francisco, and, in fact, is in the final arc of their United States journey. After the prologue, we jump back in time to the scene of the accident. Frida, with her friend, finds that she is now going to be potentially permanently disabled, and we see how charming she is even at a young age with her boyfriend. Already she is developing that knack for coded visuals and language even in her love paintings.
We then are thrust into the world where she is married to the artist Diego Rivera, and they first move to San Francisco. In SF, Frida gathers with other women artists, despite her limited English, something that would continue all the way into her time in New York City, and they would practice radical art for them.
One of the most interesting bits in the SF section to me is how Frida faces people of other races for the first time: she admires Chinatown and even gets her clothes from there. As she paints an African-American woman’s portrait, it is mentioned that she feels linked, not just as a Mexican in America, but because she felt like an outsider in society due to her disability as well.
Any tidbit I really liked was about the photographer Imogen Cunningham, who seemed to inherently understand how to photograph Frida, an ethnic woman in the United States. It’s described how Cunningham’s portraits of Native Americans were more understanding than some of her male contemporaries, as she chose to honor and respect their culture. Because Frida borrowed so much from indigenous Mexican culture, how she was depicted mattered, even if she was someone of mixed heritage.
In New York City, Diego is invited for a showcase at the MoMA, which, at the time, was in its initial stages of opening.
Some of the most iconic Frida moments described here are how jealous she gets when women come up to him and she thinks they’re flirting, but then there are scenes where it’s admitted that Frida definitely slept with the private, elusive Georgia O’Keeffe.
Life in NYC is full of rediscovering Mexican culture (which SF did not have a prominent amount of), frolicking with artists and creatives, and Frida deciding that she does not like how the city is. The book then transitions to the Detroit days, which unfold in a similar vein.
The way this book is structured is that it depicts Frida like a heroine in a novel. It’s very fluffy prose, not academic in nature, which makes it accessible for a larger audience. I had zero expectations going into this book, so I was completely fine with its nature and thought that I took away some interesting facts about Kahlo. Others, however, may be disappointed to find in-depth analysis about her work. This is not the focus of the book at all.
Overall Thoughts
If you are going to look for a book about an analysis about Frida’s artwork and how her affairs and viewpoints impacted her art, this is not the book for you.
This is an account of her time in the United States and unfolds in a narrative format about how she spent her days, how she felt, what she wrote to her mother in those moments, and teeny tiny moments of analysis about her art and what she was making at the time.
This is more for the casual fan of Frida Kahlo, perhaps, and not someone who considers themselves to be obsessed.
