The arresting pictures ofFrida Kahlo (190754) were in many ways expressions of trauma. Through a near-fatal road accident at the age of 18, failing health, a turbulent marriage, miscarriage and childlessness, shetransformed the afflictions into revolutionary art.

In literal or metaphorical self-portraiture, Kahlo looks out at the viewer with an audacious glare, rejecting her destiny as a passive victim and rather intertwining expressions of her experience into ahybrid surreal-real language of living: hair, roots, veins, vines, tendrils and fallopian tubes. Many of her works also explore theCommunist political ideals which Kahlo shared with Rivera. The artist described her paintings asthe most sincere and real thing that I could do in order to express what I felt inside and outside of myself.

This book introduces a rich body of Kahlos work to explore her unremitting determination as an artist, and her significance as a painter, feminist icon, and a pioneer of Latin American culture.

About the Series:
Each book in TASCHENs Basic Art series features:

• a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance
• a concise biography
• approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions