Frida in America

The Creative Awakening of a Great Artist

By: Celia Stahr

Narrated by: Frankie Corzo

The riveting story of how three years spent in the United States transformed Frida Kahlo into the artist we know today

Mexican artist Frida Kahlo adored adventure. In November, 1930, she was thrilled to realize her dream of traveling to the United States to live in San Francisco, Detroit, and New York. Still, leaving her family and her country for the first time was monumental.

Only 23 and newly married to the already world-famous 43-year-old Diego Rivera, she was at a crossroads in her life 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 in unexpected directions. Shifts in her style of painting began to appear, cracks in her marriage widened, and tragedy struck, twice while she was living in Detroit.

Frida in America is the first in-depth biography of these formative years spent in Gringolandia, a place Frida couldn’t always understand. But it’s precisely her feelings of being a stranger in a strange land that fueled her creative passions and an even stronger sense of Mexican identity. With vivid detail, Frida in America recreates the pivotal journey that made Senora Rivera the world famous Frida Kahlo.

©2020 by Celia Stahr. (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

"Listeners experience the disorientation and dismissal that Kahlo encountered in a personal way due to [Frankie] Corzo's evocative delivery. Listeners who want to learn more about Kahlo will sink into these two volumes, which explore a remarkable life as told by a strong voice." —AudioFile Magazine

Awesome!

This was a powerful story, with some elements that I had heard before, but in a context that I wasn’t ever exposed to as an art historian. What a fantastic work for anyone that’s interested in learning about Frida, or the struggles of people during that time in history.

Reader can’t pronounce Spanish words correctly

I can’t stand that the reader can’t say cachuchas! Uh! She is not a Mexican Spanish speaker and often gets it wrong. Don’t know why that bothers me so much

Absolutely Addicting

This is a powerhouse of a book about a powerhouse of a woman. As an artist myself, I found this so inspiring having already been such a Frida fan since adolescence. I loved all 15 hours. If you love her work, do yourself a favor and give this a listen.

Great storytelling- historical

I loved everything about this book and the audio - except!!!!! Please re-record the word 'Rouge' as in the Ford River Rouge Plant. It's NOT Row-g, it's Roo-j - like rouge you wear on your cheeks.

Stunning and Insperational

This book is a brilliant explanation of a woman who used painting to heal herself. Frida basically painted interpretations of her intimate thinking on topics that were social and personal statements as she observed them. The research and historical connections to present social issues images makes this book a no nonsense entertaining read.


The author uses her words to

Absolutely loved it!

This book is so we'll written and I lived the voice of the reader. The story of Frida in the USA truly effected her art for the rest of her life. It touches on her life in Mexico as well. I will cherish this book for years to come.

Fantastic!

Most valuable to those interrsted in women who are ahead of their tine, and those. who wish to learn more about painting, and how one's experience through time can influence subject matter, theme and style.

A close reading of an artist is interesting

First, before I purchased this audio book I saw several people complain about the reader. I found the narrator pleasant and clear to listen to. I felt Frankie Corzo channeled the author Celia Stahr well. As to the story. The most interesting and gossipy detail was Frida Kahlo's romance and relationship to Georgia O'Keeffe! Having studied and read various biographies of O'Keeffe I can say with some amazement that the O'keeffe biographers certainly downplayed or ignored all together this very interesting meeting of strong artists. The careful analysis of the paintings goes with a close biographical details which make plain that Frida was in fact responding to her relationships, other artists, locations, family and friends. Where Stahr falls quite short is in her analysis of what was happening in Europe and the Soviet Union in the 1930's and how forces in the US were responding. I was surprised not to hear what Frida's reaction was to the assassination of Trotsky and the concurrent liquidation of Trotsky supporters/real and imagined in the Soviet Union. Did Stalin's communist party really forgive Diego and Frida for taking Trotsky in? Stahr references Antony Sutton whom is an incredibly important author ignored now. "Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution" shows the connections between Rockefeller, Ford, Morgan, Rothchild and the Communist Bolsheviks. Diego Rivera's sponsorship by these same oligarchs makes perfect sense. The contradictions abound. I still like Frida and Diego's paintings, I question and doubt their politics, "Frida in America" gives some good insights but Stahr remains stuck in narratives that have collapsed. See "Dear America! Why I turned against communism" by Thomas Sgovio This book among other things talks about the Ford plant in Gorky Soviet Union as a joint project between Ford and Stalin, featuring many thousands of American workers who were lured there only to perish/be killed/die in a gulag during the Red Terror of the 1930's . Many prominent Communists in the USA like Paul Robson knew very bad things were happening, and said nothing. How much did Diego and Frida know?

Could not finish

Learning about this artist and her contribution to art interesting, however, I found that the story was delivered in a flat and simplistic manner. Facts with no analytical development. This is a woman who has much inner turmoil and there was very limited discussion of how this impacted her view of the world, her relationship with others and her work.
Her life was driven by events that happened to her and to a large extent her responses were ineffective in making positive change. She is a depressed and self absorbed woman. The social commentary is ever present and seems exaggerated and designed to sell books.

I look forward to learning more about this artist and will look for material that more fully develops this life.

Please do a better job with the readers

This is possibly the worst job of reading I have experienced with Audible. I had to steel myself to make it through. the number of names and words that this automaton mispronounced was into the hundreds and curious because one would think that some care would go into a recording made for distribution. it was a shame.