Frida in America: The Creative Awakening of a Great Artist

The riveting story of how three years spent in theUnited States transformed Frida Kahlo into the artist we knowtoday"[An] insightful debut....Featuring meticulous research andelegant turns of phrase, Stahr's engrossing account providesscholarly though accessible analysis for both feminists and artlovers." —Publisher's WeeklyMexican artist Frida Kahlo adored adventure. In November, 1930,she was thrilled to realize her dream of traveling to the UnitedStates to live in San Francisco, Detroit, and New York. Still,leaving her family and her country for the first time wasmonumental.Only twenty-three and newly married to the already world-famousforty-three-year-old Diego Rivera, she was at a crossroads in herlife and this new place, one filled with magnificent beauty,horrific poverty, racial tension, anti-Semitism, ethnic diversity,bland Midwestern food, and a thriving music scene, pushed Frida inunexpected directions. Shifts in her style of painting began toappear, cracks in her marriage widened, and tragedy struck, twicewhile she was living in Detroit.Frida in America is the first in-depth biography ofthese formative years spent in Gringolandia, a place Fridacouldn't always understand. But it's precisely her feelings ofbeing a stranger in a strange land that fueled her creativepassions and an even stronger sense of Mexican identity. With vividdetail, Frida in America recreates the pivotal journeythat made Senora Rivera the world famous Frida Kahlo.