Frida Kahlo – Self-portrait with collar de espinas y humilibrí (1940)

Exhibition poster with work by Frida Kahlo, Autorretrato con collar de espinas y colibrí, (1940), Self-portrait with thorn necklace and Hummingbird (1940).
The poster was published in connection with the exhibition, Fantastic Women at Louisiana, in 2020.

Mexican Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) is called one of the world's finest portrait painters and her Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940) is often seen as one of the most central expressions of Kahlo's portrait art.

The image conveys Kahlo's deep interest in nature and Mexican folklore, and at the same time Kahlo's strength, will and resilience in the face of a life of eternal pain, which her self-portraits often interpret: Frida Kahlo contracted polio at the age of 6 and one leg became paralyzed. She was involved in a violent traffic accident at the age of 18, became childless and went through a long series of operations.

But even though the hummingbird is dead and the blood trickles from the neck, like pictures of both mental and physical pain, the gaze is still fixed and clear. And perhaps also patiently and persistently: "I never painted my dreams. I painted my own reality", Frida Kahlo has said.

Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird has been exhibited all over the world and is one of the 55 self-portraits Frida Kahlo painted out of a total of 143 works.

Frida Kahlo, Autorretrato con collar de espinas y colibrí, 1940. Oil on canvas. Collection of Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin, Nickolas Muray Collection of Modern Mexican Art. © Banco de México Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, México DF/VISDA