Frida Kahlo - Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, 1940

The University of Texas at Austin, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Nickolas Muray Collection,

Self Portrait with Necklace of Thorns (1940)

In this painting, Frida paints herself in a frontal pose to enhance the immediacy of her presence. She has unraveled Christ's crown of thorns and wears it as a necklace, presenting herself as a Christian martyr. The thorns digging into her neck are symbolic of the pain she still feels over her divorce from Diego. Hanging from the thorny necklace is a dead hummingbird whose outstretched wings echo Frida's joined eyebrows. In Mexican folk tradition, dead hummingbirds were used as charms to bring luck in love. Over her left shoulder the black cat, a symbol of bad luck and death, waits to pounce on the hummingbird. Over her right shoulder the symbol of the devil, her pet monkey ... a gift from Diego. Around her hair, butterflies represent the Resurrection. Once again, Frida uses a wall of large tropical plant leaves as the background.

This painting was meant to be a gift for Frida's lover, the photographer Nickolas Muray. However, after her divorce from Diego she had to sell the painting to raise money for a divorce lawyer.

This painting is signed and dated "Frida Kahlo 40", indicating the painting was done in 1940. However, she tells Nickolas that she has sold the painting in a letter to him dated October 13, 1939.

www.fridakahlofans.com/c0350.html

Taken on: February 24, 2008

Tags:

Frida

Kahlo

art

painting

museum

Thorn

Necklace

Hummingbird

1940

female

artist « less

Sets appears in: • Frida Kahlo

Groups appears in: • Self-Portraits in Fine Arts • Hat Games

Stats: 24,389 views / 1 comment

go back

close tools panel

Badge creator

Use Flickriver Badge Creator to create a badge linking to your photos, your group or any other Flickriver view.

You can place your badge on your Flickr profile, Blog or Website.

Add to your iGoogle or Netvibes page

Flickriver widget for iGoogle or Netvibes can display almost any Flickriver view - most interesting today, by user, by group, by tag etc. Once added to your personalized homepage, just edit widget settings to select your desired view.

Clickr on one of the buttons below to install:

Embed on your Web site

To embed this view, Copy and Paste the following HTML code:

Black background (preview):

White background (preview):

Firefox and Chrome addons

Adds a 'Flickriver' button to your browser. While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on this button to open the same view on Flickriver.

Install in Firefox
Install in Chrome

Search plugin

Add 'Search on Flickriver' to your browser's search box. Works with Firefox and Internet Explorer. Install search plugin

"View on Flickriver" Greasemonkey script

A Greasemonkey script that adds Flickriver links to various Flickr photo pages - user photos, favorites, pools etc, allowing to quickly open the corresponding Flickriver view.

Also, allows quickly viewing any Flickr photo on black background in large size.

Install "View on Flickriver" script

Bookmarklet

While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on the bookmarklet to open the same view on Flickriver.

To install: drag and drop the following link to your Bookmarks toolbar.
IE users - add the link to your Favorites under the Links folder