Art historian, critic, and biographer Hayden Herrera talks about her book Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, sharing insights into the art and life of this renowned artist whose self-portraits illustrate Kahlo’s tumultuous marriage to the muralist Diego Rivera. Additionally, Herrera will discuss Kahlo’s paintings that express anguish over her broken body and multiple surgeries; portraits and still-lifes that underscore both her passion for Mexico and her leftist political views; and finally the paintings that suggest the joy Frida Kahlo took in nature as revealed in her depictions of fruits, vines, roots, flowers, and animals, including her pet monkeys, dogs, cats, and parrots. Herrera’s other biographies include Pulitzer Prize nominee Arshile Gorky: His Life and Work and Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
Hayden Herrera has contributed articles and reviews to such publications as Art in America, Art Forum, and the New York Times. She has lectured widely, taught art history at the School of Visual Arts and at New York University, and curated several exhibitions, among them a Frida Kahlo exhibition that toured US museums in 1978 and a traveling Frida Kahlo centennial exhibition that opened at the Walker Art Center in 2008. She lives and works in New York.