Source: WTL photograph© at the Special Exhibition of "Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism 1910 - 1950," at the Philadelphia Art Museum, December 13, 2016.
Image: "Frida Kahlo: Self-Portrait in Velvet" (1926) by Frida Kahlo (1907-1954). Oil on canvas.
Comments: This is the first or many many portraits Frida Kahlo painted of herself. For a more complete series of pages on Frida Kahlo and her works, including several self-portraits and photographs of her, click on the Frida Kahlo button below. As the curator of the Philadelphia exhibition says, this early work by Kahlo (she was only 19) demonstrates, in part, her knowledge of and Renaissance painting of portraits of women featuring elongated necks, and other signs of feminine elegance. Notice the delicate hands, for instance, and a kind of Chiaroscuro contrast between light and dark). Incidentally, Kahlo gave this portrait to Alejandro Gómez Arias, a fellow art student and boyfriend-lover, with whom she was breaking up over politics (he was less liberal than she was) and who is portrayed very nicely in Julie Taymor's 2002 movie Frida. Note, too, that she completed this painting after her tragic trolley accident in 1925.
Humanities Question: Please reflect on your reaction to this painting in the context of the comments above.