Hayden Herrera
art historian and biographer (born 1940)
Hayden Herrera (née Philips; born November 20, 1940) is an American author and historian. Her book Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo was turned into a movie in 2002 and Herrera's biography Arshile Gorky: His Life and Work was named a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.
Early life and education
Herrera was born on November 20, 1940 to parents Elizabeth and John Phillips and grandfather William Phillips. Growing up in Vermont, she attended North Country School and The Putney School before enrolling at Radcliffe College. After leaving Radcliffe to pursue painting, she married Harvard University alumni Phillip Herrera in 1961. She returned to schooling and graduated with her Bachelor of Arts from Barnard College in 1964 and her Master's degree from Hunter College.
While pursuing her PhD at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Herrera travelled to Mexico City with friends who encouraged her to attend Frida Kahlo's art show. She had not heard of Kahlo before. In 1976, she wrote an article about Kahlo, which she submitted to a publishing agency, and centered her thesis around the artist in 1981.
Career
Following her graduation, Herrera formally published her thesis as her first book titled Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, which was met with positive reviews from critics.
“Hayden Herrera” enters the record as art historian and biographer (born 1940). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Hayden, Herrera and historian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q56305697. VIAF identifies the subject as 213505112. The Library of Congress control number is n82027687. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1940, 2002, 2004 and 1961.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hayden Herrera” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.