Frida Kahlo (1907-1954)—a visionary artist and a master of self-invention—drew inspiration throughout her career from Mexican folk art (arte popular), including painted ceramics, embroidered textiles, religious votives, retablos, papier-mâché sculptures, and children’s toys, created by Mexico’s rural and indigenous communities. The hundreds of folk art objects in her home and studio speak to her nationalist politics and her fascination with the work of carvers, weavers, papier-mâché sculptors, and folk painters. She depicted these objects in her paintings and adopted traditional dress and ornamentation in her own self-presentation, deftly exploiting modernism’s fascination with folk cultures and her own association with a layered Mexican identity.
The first book to delve into Kahlo’s varied and nuanced responses to folk art, this bilingual volume places her within the broad artistic and intellectual movements of her day, considers her career ambitions, and illuminates the innovative techniques she employed in her lifelong encounter—both playful and profound—with Mexican arte popular.
