The Letters of Frida Kahlo: Cartas Apasionadas

In her enigmatic self-portraits, Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) depicted herself as an enchanting, exotic yet martyred woman, and these candid letters, written between 1924 and 1948, flesh out that image with revealing personal glimpses. They cover her hospitalization after a near-fatal bus accident in 1925, which left her with lifelong spinal and foot injuries; her separation from and reconciliation with husband Diego Rivera in 1935, prompted by the muralist's affair with her sister Christina; Frida's affair with Hungarian-born photographer Nicholas Murray; her divorce from Rivera in 1939 and remarrige to him a year later. These highly articulate, witty letters, by turns touching, playful, desperate and mystical, present a woman who lived for her art, when she was not tending to the needs of her moody husband. This attractive volume also includes poems by Kahlo, her lecture analyzing her painting of Moses and her character sketch of ``steadfast revolutionary fighter'' Rivera. (Oct.)