Frida Kahlo

(Mexico, 06/07/1907 - 13/07/1954)

Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940)

Known for her vivid, emotionally charged exploration of identity and the female experience, Kahlo is remembered as a feminist and queer icon, celebrated for her uncompromising honesty and powerful visual storytelling.

Born in Mexico City in 1907, and left with a limp after contracting polio at the age of six, Kahlo began painting at 18 when recovering from a trolley accident that shattered her pelvis and spine, leaving her with chronic pain and undergoing more than 30 surgeries throughout her life.

During her long recovery, Kahlo began painting from her bed, using a mirror mounted above her easel to create self-portraits that explored the duality of her interior perception of her world versus the exterior evidence.

Though initially intending to study medicine, Kahlo’s passion for art grew as she repeatedly portrayed herself. She joined political circles including communist parties and, in 1929, married muralist Diego Rivera with whom she had a turbulent relationship that provided mutual artistic inspiration and a shared commitment to Mexican nationalism and revolutionary politics.

Her deeply personal subject matter, along with the intimate scale of her paintings, sharply contrasted with the work of her muralist contemporaries, but she nonetheless participated in her peers’ exaltation of Mexico’s indigenous culture.

After receiving a solo exhibition in New York in 1938, Kahlo’s was ‘discovered’ by Surrealist founder André Breton, who enthusiastically embraced her art as self-made Surrealism and included her work in his 1940 Exhibition of Surrealism in Mexico City. Yet if her art had an uncanny quality akin to the movement, Kahlo consistently and furiously resisted the association, saying “I never knew I was a surrealist until André Breton came to Mexico and told me I was one”.

Beyond her artistic achievements, Kahlo’s life embodied defiance against conventional expectations and she openly explored relationships with both men and women. Her distinctive style became as iconic as her paintings, challenging Western beauty standards and celebrating indigenous Mexican culture.

Image: Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940). Oil on canvas, 40.6 x 60.9 cm. Nickolas Muray Collection of Mexican Art, U.S.A.