Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 06/01/2014 *Starred Review* Reef profiles the lives, accomplishments, and relationship of the two most recognizable figures in Mexican art: Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. The story opens in 1922, with Rivera painting a mural in Mexico City’s National Preparatory School. Kahlo, a mischievous student before the near-fatal traffic accident that would leave her in pain for most of her life, watched the muralist work for hours. Shifting back in time, the story tells of each figure’s childhood, youth, and development as an artist, giving particular attention to Rivera’s years spent training in Europe and Kahlo’s devotion to painting despite significant health problems. After their first marriage in 1929 (they would divorce in 1939, then remarry in 1940), the stories of their lives are intertwined in a complex, braided narrative, woven with colorful strands of their art, their politics, their romantic liaisons with others, and their intense, complicated relationship. Along the way, Reef points out each individual’s artistic development and unique qualities as a painter. Archival photos and color reproductions of artworks further enhance the narrative. Writing a dual biography is challenging, but in this case, the portrayal of each person would seem incomplete without an understanding of the other. A handsome biography that is both engaging and enlightening. - Copyright 2014 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 08/01/2014 Gr 7 Up—The lives of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo were marked by exceptional artistic talent, political fervor, and an all-consuming passion for each other that even outlasted their two marriages. Private and professional heartbreak and an idiosyncratic outlook on life and the world influenced the pair's intensely personal paintings. Readers will learn much about the artists in this dual biography, including information on their numerous love affairs. Still, every relationship clarified for the couple that they couldn't really exist or produce art without the other. Superb examples of Rivera's and Kahlo's paintings are reproduced in glorious full color, replete with rich Mexican-folkloric and earth tones, and the work is filled with excellently reproduced contemporary photos that place events in historical and personal context. Striking use of color elsewhere, as on chapter-opening and back-matter pages, also figure into the handsome design. A well-rounded treatment of two giants of 20th-century art, this volume tracks the separate and combined trajectories of its subjects' lives and careers and allows for comparisons and contrasts. It is highly recommended for public and school libraries and will be useful for units on modern and Latino art and for studies of women artists.—Carol Goldman, Queens Library, NY - Copyright 2014 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Bulletin for the Center... - 09/01/2014 Even if teen readers are unfamiliar with Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, they’re sure to be intrigued by this book’s cover photograph of the beautiful, petite young woman snuggled adoringly against the older, pot-bellied gent, alongside the implied subtitle promise of a love story. And what a tumultuous love story it is, from teenaged Frida teasing the older professional muralist at her high school, through their stormy, infidelity-racked marriage and subsequent divorce, and on to their platonic remarriage, when they realized they could no more live apart than together. Reef tackles the unconventional love story head-on, with a candor that pulls no punches with its youth audience. The pair were, however, artists-mutually supportive and referential in their art-and it is here that this title tends to stumble, largely from inconsistent organization, which frequently separates illustrations from textual references, and even more gratingly, lacks reproductions of pivotal works described at length within the text. There is, for example, no view of Rivera’s controversial mural in the Palace of Cortez, depicting Spaniards massacring indigenous people, nor of Kahlo’s “Henry Ford Hospital,” described as a “breakthrough” painting that marked her shift toward intensely personal and symbolic works. This may nonetheless be well-received by biography readers, who would be hard-pressed to find a more striking contrast in real life love stories than between Frida & Diego and Heiligman’s Charles and Emma (BCCB 2/09). Index, source notes for the myriad color and black and white illustrations, bibliography, timeline, illustration credits, and mini galleries of the artists’ work are included. EB - Copyright 2014 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

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