5 Frida Kahlo Self-Portraits You Need to See

1. The Two Fridas, 1939

While much of Frida Kahlo’s work addresses balancing dualities within her identity, this painting is the most direct and literal depiction of this theme. She is pictured on the left in a European-style dress, and on the right, she wears a traditional Mexican dress. Kahlo’s mother was Mexican, and her father was German. Her name was originally spelled Frieda, but she changed the spelling at a time when anti-German sentiment was high.

Kahlo completed this painting the same year she and Diego Rivera divorced (they would later remarry). The Kahlo-figure on the right holds a pendant of a boy, which may be Rivera. The figure on the left is performing self-surgery, a literal gouging out of her heart. At the same time, despite the differences and obvious pain, an artery connects the two hearts, making two Fridas one.

2. Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair, 1940

Here, Kahlo shows herself in a man’s suit, scissors in hand, her clipped hair laying at her feet like snakes. The text and music atop the painting come from a Mexican folk song and in translation reads, “Look, if I loved you, it was because of your hair. Now that you are without hair, I don’t love you anymore.”

With her hair and attire, Kahlo is projecting masculinity, claiming power, and perhaps simultaneously rejecting Diego Rivera. Kahlo often played with gender expression both in her art and in real life. In a 1926 family photo, Kahlo appears in a three-piece suit, an extremely unconventional choice for the time. Kahlo sometimes painted her eyebrows and the hair over her lip much heavier than they appeared in real life, again bucking traditional gender constructs and making herself appear more masculine.

3. Diego on My Mind, 1943

In this self-portrait, Frida Kahlo painted herself in a traditional Tehuantepec headdress with a portrait of Diego Rivera on her forehead. Kahlo met Rivera when she was a 15-year-old student and he was an accomplished 37-year-old artist painting a mural at her school. Several years later, they reunited and married. It was Rivera’s third marriage.

Rivera was the dominant presence throughout Kahlo’s adult life. While the two artists aided and inspired one another, their tumultuous marriage was also the source of tremendous pain. Rivera was never faithful. Kahlo herself had several affairs with men and women, including Soviet revolutionary Leon Trotsky. The couple divorced after Rivera’s affair with Kahlo’s sister, Cristina. However, the divorce didn’t take. Letters reveal love and devotion as deep as the hurt the two inflicted on one another.

This painting shows the ever-presence of Rivera not only in Kahlo’s life but also as a constant in her thoughts. Kahlo completed another self-portrait showing Rivera on her forehead in 1949 entitled Diego and I.

4. Without Hope, 1945

Around the time of this painting, Kahlo was put on bed rest and made to wear a corset while being treated for continued difficulty with her spine. She stopped eating and was force-fed with a funnel as part of her treatment. As jarring as this image is, and exaggerated to the point of being grotesque, it is illustrative of one of the many brutal medical treatments she received throughout her life.

The meat being forced into the funnel is largely whole, still recognizable as animals, which adds to the horror of the scene. The skull is likely a sugar skull, another symbol eroding the thin barrier between life and death. The sun and the moon, as well as the barren landscape, suggest a vastness with which Kahlo cannot compete. She is at the mercy of her circumstances.

5. The Wounded Deer, 1946

Kahlo dealt with pain, surgeries, and medical procedures throughout her life. Many now believe she was born with spina bifida, which may in part explain her lifelong back problems. At age six, she contracted polio. This made her right leg weak and thin and is part of the reason she wore long skirts. At age 18, a bus accident left her with several broken bones. A metal rail punctured her abdomen and uterus.

This accident was likely the cause of her lifelong infertility. Her infertility, in turn, is part of what made her a devout pet owner, as she sought to care for and nurture her animals. In addition to cats, birds, monkeys, and dogs, she had a pet deer, Granizo, who may have inspired this painting.

The Wounded Deer is a clear representation of Kahlo as the object of pain. In this painting, the deer figure is defenseless and at the mercy of the unseen hunter(s) and is taking on arrows all over its body. Kahlo is again giving herself masculine features, this time antlers. She is neither male nor female, human nor animal, but she is clearly a creature in pain.