Abstract
Renowned Mexican artist Frida Kahlo has hidden behind many masks during her life. She liked to present herself as the little wife of the famous painter Diego Rivera, as an amateur and naive painter and as a typical Mexican - but beneath this appearance hid a much more complex personality.
An in-depth and integrated look at Kahlo's paintings and diary makes it possible to remove the masks and reveal the complex and fascinating meanings of her art, writings and life story. Frida Kahlo was ahead of her time. In her work she dealt with the politics of identities, gender and multiculturalism, many years before these concepts became common and fashionable code words. She realized prematurely that identity is not permanent, but changing, invented, elusive and multifaceted. Through her art, she presented herself as an emerging, multi-layered and contradictory entity: as a body and a soul, as a man and as a woman, as the daughter of a Jewish immigrant, as a wounded deer, and as a Hindu Parvati.
This book presents readers with a facsimile edition of Frida Kahlo's diary. The diary is accompanied by a Hebrew translation, an extensive introduction to the artist's life, insights into her paintings and a detailed interpretation of the diary pages.
Dr. Gannit Ankori is a lecturer in the Department of Art History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, whose doctoral dissertation dealt with Frida Kahlo. She has been researching Kahlo's work for many years, has published articles and a comprehensive book on the subject in the United States and England and has become a renowned expert in the field.