An oeuvre full of color and brilliance

As a specialist magazine for graphic design, we also report on art when it comes in a particularly spectacular guise - like the XXL monograph on Frida Kahlo's work. The extremely elegant, excellently designed book includes all of the artist's paintings as well as photographs and written documents.

An unusual life in turbulent times

Frida Kahlo's beginnings as a serious painter came at a time that was groundbreaking for modern Mexican painting. But many new styles also emerged in graphic art, sculpture and photography.

Her eventful life contributed to Kahlo's legend - especially her lifelong story of suffering. She decided at a young age to devote herself to painting after surviving a tragic bus accident. The consequences forced her to spend her everyday life lying down and in a full-body cast or corset from then on. Her creative activities were initially a pastime, but after her marriage to Diego Rivera, she quickly rose to the top of the art scene.

An artist exploring new territory

As an autodidact who explored aesthetic approaches with complete impartiality, Frida Kahlo still stands for great artistic freedom today. She also made this impression through her appearance: she showed her revolutionary zeal and patriotism by wearing a traditional costume, her hair always pinned up and adorned with jewelry. Her face remains legendary to this day, and even the graphic design scene can't help but notice it. We recently wrote about her inspiration for the graphic design of a project from Switzerland.

Before she became known in her home country, which she so admired, her work was praised by renowned art collectors in the USA and Europe. André Breton accepted the painter into the international circle of surrealists and exhibited her work in Paris, where Picasso, Kandinsky and Duchamp admired her. It was only much later, when she was confined to her bed, that her paintings were shown for the first time in a solo exhibition in her home country - recognition that she had long wished for. She died of a pulmonary embolism in 1954; suicide has not been ruled out.

The design of the book

"Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything turns, everything flies and disappears", a quote attributed to Frida Kahlo. Fortunately, the XXL monograph also serves to capture as much of her work as possible, so that it doesn't fly away and disappear. Author Luis-Martín Lozano is an accomplished art historian who works as a curator of modern and contemporary Mexican art in the country itself and in Latin America, as well as for many institutions in the United States, Europe and Asia. He was supported by Andrea Kettenmann and Marina Vázquez Ramos, two art historians whose focus is on the works of Kahlo and modern art from Mexico. This enabled Frida Kahlo's drawings, diary pages and letters to be categorized accordingly.

The book presents works from private collections as well as works that were previously considered lost - in brilliant reproductions and in combination with famous photographs. Numerous images by renowned photographic artists such as Edward Weston, Manuel and Lola Álvarez Bravo, Nickolas Muray and Martin Munkácsi are printed in the highest quality and in a huge format. But that's not the only thing that makes a lasting impression - weighing over five kilos, the hardcover is truly massive in the hand, but that only does justice to the iconic life of the artist.

Sensual and often encrypted

The numerous self-portraits in particular, with which Frida Kahlo set off a firework of colors and sensory impressions, and of which she made over 50, are still fascinating today. Today's selfie culture may only be a shallow copy of this, but her self-portraits are equally sensual and emotive, but also disturbing and often coded in themselves. She even wrote down her own canon of colors, and the respective meanings of the hues she used can be found in her diary.

The Taschen monograph provides an authentic insight into the artist's inner turmoil, but also her will to live. Her symbolic language draws on a rich source: she draws on Far Eastern mythology and Aztec creation myths, but of course also on Mexican customs and the European art history that influenced her, as well as contemporary social and political influences.

A rich treasure that inspires reflection, the use of color and a life deeply dedicated to creativity.

Frida Kahlo. All paintings

Taschen Verlag, Cologne
Luis-Martín Lozano, Andrea Kettenmann, Marina Vázquez Ramos
Hardcover
29 x 39.5 cm, 5.42 kg, 624 pages
150 Euro
ISBN 978-3-8365-7421-1