An excellent choice for Fridaphiles, her diaries offer another glimpse of Kahlo's interior life, rages and politics. The introduction by Carlos Fuentes is a fresh take on Kahlo's significance today.
Not nearly as well-known as Kahlo, but just as significant, this is a great introduction to some of her best known photographs as well as a comprehensive biography of a woman who began as Edward Weston's model and became a photographer in her own right. Modotti was one of the first photographers to document the murals of Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco and her photographs of a post-Revolutionary Mexico are a revelation and capture the politics of the era.
Now that Rivera's work, like Kahlo's, can be found on everything from mousepads to mugs, Folgarait's work goes more in depth, offering a brilliant analysis of where art and revolution met in Mexico and putting that into socio-historical perspective. The murals of Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Jose Clemente Orozco are covered.
For a look at who and what inspired artists like Rivera and Orozco (and even rock band Rage Against The Machine), the popular Mexican prints of Jose Guadalupe Posada cannot be ignored. A popular graphic artist who celebrated the common man, this book of engravings showcases his famous calaveras (skeletons) at the Mexican Day of the Dead, as revolutionaries and for political and social satire.
