Frida Kahlo's work cannot be understood without linking it to her life. Each of her paintings corresponds to some episode of her agitated, sometimes tragic, life trajectory, marked by an illness that left her bedridden. 

Although we can approach her emotions through her art, what do we really know about her feelings, her dreams, her secrets?

The publishing house Artika has compiled in a limited issue artbook a series of sketches and works that were never conceived to be exhibited in public: her pencil, ink, sepia and watercolor drawings. Works that the artist shared in a more intimate way with people close to her, where she shows us her dreams and true feelings.  "They were her inheritance and a way of saying "I love you," writes Diana Garrido, journalist for Architectural Digest magazine. 

To this end, painstaking research and investigation have been required, since most of the drawings disappeared after the artist’s deaths or fell into oblivion in often-inaccessible private collections and several museums.
 
The book, a worldwide limited issue (2998 copies), consists of an Art Book, a Study Book and a folder with a large sheet. It also includes a unique slipcase inspired by the Casa Azul, Frida's home in Coyoacán, Mexico City, which served as inspiration for many of her paintings.

The Art Book offers a selection of 34 drawings, reproduced in their original size and supplemented by quotes directly from Frida’s diary.

The Art Folder contains a reproduction of a large sepia print, El pájaro nalgón (1946), a spectacular and enigmatic mosaic from the period of Frida Kahlo's affair with José Bartolí.

The Study Book, illustrated with nearly 100 drawings, offers the first analysis of Frida Kahlo's work by the world's most renowned experts on the artist. Helga Prignitz-Poda, co-author of the catalogue raisonné on Frida's works, art historian and exhibition curator, analyses the Mexican painter's work in depth.  The study is rounded out by Juan Rafael Coronel Rivera, journalist, poet, and grandson of Diego Rivera, and María del Sol Argüelles San Millán, director of the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Home Studio Museum, who explore Kahlo at her most intimate.

The Sculpture Case showcases the Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940), which is revealed behind a veil of leaves in die-cut wood. Frida's intense gaze invites you to delve into her most personal works and the least-known facet of her art. The interior of the case reveals the artist’s hidden face as well as her most private world.

This is an exceptional opportunity to intimately discover the suggestive fragility of Kahlo’s dreams, the extraordinary strength of her art, and her passionate personal life.

The book, bilingual in Spanish and English, comes in a wooden frame, alluding to the Blue House.

Readers can reserve a copy at Artika's website.