María Izquierdo and Frida Kahlo : challenging visions in modern Mexican art / Nancy Deffebach.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Deffebach, Nancy, author.

Series:

Latin American and Caribbean Arts and Culture publication initiative (Andrew W. Mellon Foundation)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women artists--Mexico.

Women artists.

Feminism and art.

Izquierdo, María, 1902-1955--Criticism and interpretation.

Izquierdo, María.

Kahlo, Frida--Criticism and interpretation.

Kahlo, Frida.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (252 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Austin, Texas : University of Texas Press, 2015.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

María Izquierdo (1902–1955) and Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) were the first two Mexican women artists to achieve international recognition. During the height of the Mexican muralist movement, they established successful careers as easel painters and created work that has become an integral part of Mexican modernism. Although the iconic Kahlo is now more famous, the two artists had comparable reputations during their lives. Both were regularly included in major exhibitions of Mexican art, and they were invariably the only women chosen for the most important professional activities and honors. In a deeply informed study that prioritizes critical analysis over biographical interpretation, Nancy Deffebach places Kahlo’s and Izquierdo’s oeuvres in their cultural context, examining the ways in which the artists participated in the national and artistic discourses of postrevolutionary Mexico. Through iconographic analysis of paintings and themes within each artist’s oeuvre, Deffebach discusses how the artists engaged intellectually with the issues and ideas of their era, especially Mexican national identity and the role of women in society. In a time when Mexican artistic and national discourses associated the nation with masculinity, Izquierdo and Kahlo created images of women that deconstructed gender roles, critiqued the status quo, and presented more empowering alternatives for women. Deffebach demonstrates that, paradoxically, Kahlo and Izquierdo became the most successful Mexican women artists of the modernist period while most directly challenging the prevailing ideas about gender and what constitutes important art.

Contents:

contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction; Part One. The Problem of the Hero; 1. Women on the Wire: Izquierdo's Images of Circus Performers; 2. Saints and Goddesses Kahlo's Appropriations of Religious Iconography in Her Self-Portraits; Part Two. Legitimating Traditions; 3. Revitalizing the Past: Precolumbian Figures from West Mexico in Kahlo's Paintings; 4. Beyond the Personal: Kahlo's La niña, la luna y el sol of 1942; 5. Mother of the Maize: Izquierdo's Images of Rural Gardens with Granaries; Part Three. The Wall of Resistance; 6. What Sex Is the City? Izquierdo's Aborted Mural Project

Part Four. Still-Life Paintings7. Picantes pero sabrosas Kahlo's Still-Life Paintings and Related Images; 8. Grain of Memory: Izquierdo's Paintingso f Altars to the Virgin of Sorrows; Part Five. Women's Rights in Modern Mexico; 9. Beyond the Canvas: Izquierdo, Kahlo, and Women's Rights; Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-4773-0049-X

OCLC:

910916260