Latino History Month-MAC Hosts Book Club for "Frida in America"

Coinciding with Latino Heritage Month, the McAninch Arts Center (MAC), is hosting a Book Club reading initiative around "Frida in America: The Creative Awakening of a Great Artist" by Celia Stahr. The MAC will present a live virtual discussion of Stahr's book 3 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 4. The discussion, hosted by MAC Director Diana Martinez, will include a Q&A with author Stahr. Tickets are $10 and on sale at AtTheMAC.org.

“We’re thrilled to be able to bring attention to Stahr’s book," says Martinez. "I believe it will give our audience and area Frida Kahlo fans some interesting insights into the artist in advance of their visit to the ‘Frida Kahlo: Timeless’ exhibition coming to the Cleve Carney Museum of Art and the MAC in Summer 2021." In the spirit of community, the Daily Herald is providing promotional support for the Book Club initiative and The Book Store of Glen Ellyn is offering a 15% discount to anyone mentioning "Celia Stahr Book Club."

Mexican artist Frida Kahlo adored adventure and, in 1930, realized her dream of traveling to the U.S. to live in San Francisco, Detroit and New York. Still, at age 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 filled with beauty, poverty, racial tension, ethnic diversity, bland Midwestern food and a vibrant music scene, pushed Kahlo in unexpected directions. Shifts in her style of painting began to appear and cracks in her marriage widened.

“Frida in America” has been described as the first in-depth biography of these formative years spent in what Kahlo referred to as “Gringolandia,” a place Frida couldn’t always understand. But it was her feelings of being a stranger in a strange land that fueled her creative passions and an even stronger sense of Mexican identity. “Frida in America” recreates the journey that made señora Rivera the world famous Frida Kahlo. Stahr’s narrative is based on the diary of Lucienne Bloch, a woman who became Kahlo’s confidante in the U.S., as well as on correspondence between Kahlo and her family in Mexico.

Celia Stahr, PhD is a native of California, developed a love of art and culture due to her many experiences traveling to Cuba, Mexico, East and Southern Africa, Western Europe, China, and every region of the United States. She has a background in modern and contemporary art history (with a particular focus on issues of race and gender) as well as in African art and the diaspora. Stahr is interested in artists who cross cultural boundaries and the political, social, artistic, and psychological ramifications of such actual or imagined "border" crossings.