Gisèle Freund was a renowned photographer & photo journalist who fled Nazi Germany and settled in Paris in 1933. she studied at the Sorbonne, worked around the world for Time and Life magazines and took the first colour portraits of numerous writers and artists including Simone de Beauvoir, Virginia Woolf, Matisse, Man Ray and many others – all of which you can see here.
in 1950 she made her way to Mexico for an intended 2-week trip, but only left 2 years later (i’m not sure why! i’m going to have to buy the book). there she befriended an ailing Frida Kahlo, who she photographed in the last years of her life. a new book containing these photos, the one i just mentioned, was released this month (a previous edition was available in French, i can just assume it did not contain as many photographs?) damn, Frida was one bad-ass woman and i just LOVE her.
These powerful photographs, among the last taken before Kahlo’s death, bear poignant witness to Frida’s beauty and talent. Showcasing more than 100 of these rare images, many of which have never been published before, the book also includes previously unpublished commentary by Gisèle Freund about Frida Kahlo.
buy Frida Kahlo: The Gisèle Freund Photographs and see a few more images at The Cut.