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Frida Kahlo Self Portrait
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| Limited Edition:
190 Banners |
| Price:
$525 |
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| Museum:
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art |
| Exhibition:
Frida Kahlo |
| Material:
Printed vinyl |
| Dimensions:
L: 72 " (183 cm) : W:35 "
(89 cm) |
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Description:
Surrealist writer André Breton once commented that “The art of Frida Kahlo is a ribbon around a bomb.” The lush style of her painting, the tactile brushwork, the vibrant colors and saturated hues – all are visually beautiful “wrapping” They contain the powerful “bomb” at the heart of her self-portraits -- the painful, tortured, physically-challenged life of this most extraordinary woman. Her self-portraits are both an expression of her individual self and a testament to the human spirit’s ability to triumph over inconceivable sorrow and suffering.
These banners feature one of her striking images from 1940, Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird. On the banner is the central imagery from the work featuring a forward-facing Kahlo surrounded by surreal images, personal symbols, and aspects of her life in the real world. Above one shoulder sits her beloved pet monkey, and above the other a pet cat. Hanging from her thorn necklace is a dead hummingbird. Above her head, atop hair pinned with butterfly clips, float a pair of mechanical dragonflies with flowers for heads. It is perhaps the thorn necklace piercing her neck and drawing blood that tells us the most about Kahlo’s emotional and physical demons. The thorns represent not a sudden, unexpected pain, but the lingering pain of something small and nagging that never ends. It is the pain of chronic illness, of unending heart break, and of a passionate love that is never fully reciprocated.
The image covers the front of the banner with a white band running across the bottom. The other side of the banner is red with a paler red scroll pattern as decoration. Yellow and white text reads “Frida Kahlo/Jun 14 – Sep 28”. The museum’s black and yellow “SFMOMA” logo is printed in a white band running across the bottom of the banner.
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| Provenance:
These banners were displayed around San Francisco to promote the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s retrospective exhibition Frida Kahlo from June 14 — September 28, 2008. The exhibition was also seen at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. |
About the Artist:
For Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), her self-portraits are her biography, chronicling her physical and emotional turmoil. At the age of six she was stricken with polio leaving her with a pronounced limp. At eighteen she was severely injured in a bus accident leaving her with a slew of chronic health problems including the inability to bear children. In 1929, she married Mexican muralist Diego Rivera and embarked on a tempestuous relationship marred by infidelity, jealousy, obsessive passion, and divorce. Kahlo’s Communist political ideologies are now often glossed over or minimized. She was a devote Trotskyite and at one point had an affair with Leon Trotsky. She turned on him to support Stalin – despite the knowledge that he was responsible for millions of deaths (including Trotsky’s). Addicted to pain killers, one leg amputated below the knee, her abilities as an artist on the wane, Kahlo died at the age of 47.
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| Color Scheme: Warm - Cool - |
| Style: Modern - |
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