FROM PRINCETON ARCHITECTURAL PRESS

Finding Frida Kahlo
Barbara Levine , Stephen Jaycox
ISBN 9781568988306
8.5 x 11 inches (21.6 x 27.9 cm), Hardcover , 256 pages
250 color illustrations

"Let's go see the Frida Kahlos."

It seemed inconceivable that after decades of exhibitions, auctions, books, and movies, unpublished Frida Kahlo artwork could still be found anywhere, much less a shop in a converted textile factory. "Well, if you don't believe me just come along," replied her traveling companion. Barbara Levine, having recently relocated to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, could not resist and was soon en route to La Buhardilla Antiquarios (The Attic Antiques).

Down an arched stone corridor in a small back room sat two wooden chests, a metal trunk, a wooden box, and a battered old suitcase. On the lid of the suitcase was the name "Sra. KAHLO DE RIVERA." The shop owners opened the five cases to reveal a jumble of objects, including paintings, drawings, keepsake boxes, annotated books, clothing, a diary, and other assorted items and ephemera. Levine picked up one of ten airmail letters, inscribed with the words "personal archive of Frida K. and personal archive of my private life."

Finding Frida Kahlo presents, for the first time in print, an astonishing lost archive attributed to one of the twentieth century's most revered artists. Hidden from view for over half a century, this richly illustrated, intimate portrait overflows with fascinating details about Kahlo's romances, friendships, and business affairs during a three-decade period, beginning in the 1920s when she was a teenager and ending just before she died in 1954. Full of ardent desires, seething fury, and outrageous humor, Finding Frida Kahlo is a rare glimpse into an exuberant and troubled existence: A vivid diary entry records her sexual encounter with a woman named Doroti; a painted box contains eleven stuffed hummingbirds, concealed beneath a letter in which she laments her discovery that her husband, Diego Rivera, had been monstrously dissecting "these beautiful creatures" to extract an aphrodisiac; an altered French medical book describes the pain she was suffering from the amputation of her right leg, written by Kahlo upon pages that illustrate an amputation technique; a letter to a friend expresses her loneliness, and a simple request for coconut candies. Frida Kahlo never wrote an autobiography. Instead, she left behind a much more complex material universe. Finding Frida Kahlo offers scholars and fans alike an opportunity to examine firsthand Kahlo's secret world and draw their own conclusions about how she imagined her place in it.

P U B L I S H E R S W E E K LY ■ 42 O C T O B E R 5 , 2 0 0 9
★ Finding Frida Kahlo
Barbara Levine with Stephen Jaycox.
Princeton Architectural, $50 (256p) ISBN 978-
1-56898-830-6
Independent curator Levine (Around
the World) encountered a mysterious, important
and long-hidden collection of
more than 1,200 of what are reputed to
be Frida Kahlo’s personal items in the
back room of an antiques store in San
Miguel de Allende, Mexico. (The Associated
Press has reported that the Diego
Rivera and Frida Kahlo Trust has
charged that the materials in this book
are forged. Mexican prosecutors are investigating.)
Levine and Jaycox meticulously
document the unpacking of the
archive from five trunks, suitcases and
boxes, and guide readers through the
contents with reproductions of letters
and diaries, and photos of Kahlo’s drawings
and personal effects. Levine finds it
all illuminating, not only regarding
Kahlo but also “the universally human
tendencies that the archive represents.”
Levine’s interview with the antiques store
owners recounts their fascinating
acquisition of the pieces while the “visual
exploration” focuses on Kahlo’s impassioned
love and hatred for her husband,
Diego Rivera, whom she calls an “evil fat
toad,” and her anxiety over her amputated
leg, which manifests itself in her obsession
with flight (“What do I want feet
for/ If I have wings to fly”). This beautiful
book poetically offers a fresh look at
one of art’s iconic women, and though
Kahlo is the protagonist of the project,
Levine’s journey includes us all. (Nov.)