Following the daring vital acclaim of her first solo exhibition in New York in 1938, Frida Kahlo set out for her first and solely voyage to a war-threatened Europe. French Surrealist André Breton, a pal and collaborator, had invited her to sojourn at dwelling along with his spouse and daughter in Paris for a couple of weeks whereas he launched preparations for Mexique, the French model of the exhibition. Nonetheless, Breton had not secured a gallery for the present, nor had Kahlo’s work’ customs been sorted. Kahlo additionally caught an an infection at Breton’s dwelling that required hospitalization, after which she made preparations to verify right into a resort. “To hell with the whole lot regarding Breton and all this awful place,” she expressed in a letter to her then-lover, Hungarian-American photographer Nickolas Muray.
In a stroke of serendipity, Mary Reynolds, American specialist of bindings of Dada and Surrealist publications and companion of Marcel Duchamp, inspired Kahlo to remain in her dwelling in Paris following her hospital discharge. The ebook Frida Kahlo’s Month in Paris: A Friendship with Mary Reynolds, a companion to an exhibition of the identical title on the Artwork Institute of Chicago, chronicles Kahlo’s brief encounter with the world of French Surrealists at Reynolds’s dwelling.
Astutely conceptualized as a “Surrealist Drama in 5 Acts,” the ebook was collaboratively written by exhibition curators Caitlin Haskell, Tamar Kharatishvili, and Alivé Piliado Santana, who clarify that “Kahlo’s time at 14 rue Hallé offers us a glimpse into the on a regular basis life that’s wanted to maintain artists’ work.” Whereas making ready for Mexique, which additionally included images by Manuel Alvarez Bravo and pre-Columbian artwork at Paris’s Galerie Renou et Colle, Kahlo spent a month communing at Reynolds’s dwelling, a most marvelous assembly house for creatives, generously embellished with uncommon supplies, objects, and artwork.
Frida Kahlo’s Month in Paris, although aiming to centralize the titular figures’ friendship on the peak of European trendy artwork, is in the end extra about Reynolds and her ingenious inventive ebook bindings than the rest. The publication contains photographs of an enchanting choice of artwork books that Duchamp and Reynolds sure for his or her closest mates in pure and artificial supplies corresponding to leather-based, silk, vellum, and animal skins.
Their curiosity in natural varieties and textures could be seen in a duplicate of French author Alfred Jarry’s 1896 play Ubu Roi (“King Ubu”), sure in tan goatskin with gold stamping. One other visible standout from the gathering is the 1936 Les derniers jours (“The Final Days”) by French poet Raymond Queneau, sure in black calfskin and agate marble with gold stamping by Reynolds.
The ebook additionally introduces a number of individuals who had been instrumental in Kahlo’s profession in Europe and entangled with Reynolds, together with artists Constantin Brâncuși and Man Ray, artwork seller Pierre Colle, and artwork collectors corresponding to Peggy Guggenheim. Via people, artwork books, letters, and pictures, it vividly encapsulates the huge mental, materials, and artistic sphere Kahlo engaged with in only a month, at the same time as she rejected Breton’s “Surrealist” label for her work.
The exact second when and the way Kahlo and Reynolds first met stays unknown, however the blossoming of their felicitous friendship demonstrates a profound connection between their lives and artwork, one which mirrors the emphasis on likelihood discoveries in Surrealism itself. Amid Kahlo’s letters and work, a 1939 typed letter by Reynolds to the artist acts as a testomony to the lasting impression of their temporary friendship. “The home remains to be and doesn’t know itself,” she wrote. “Each single factor misses you tremendously.”
Frida Kahlo’s Month in Paris: A Friendship with Mary Reynolds (2025), by Caitlin Haskell, Tamar Kharatishvili, and Alivé Piliado Santana, is printed by the College of Chicago Press and obtainable on-line or by way of unbiased booksellers.
