Self Portrait with Hummingbird and Thorn Necklace. Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird is a 1940 self-portrait by Mexican painter Frida Kahlo which also includes a black cat, a gorila and two dragonflies.
It was painted after Kahlo's divorce from Diego Rivera and the end of her affair with photographer Nickolas Muray. Muray bought the portrait shortly after it was painted, and it is currently part of the Nickolas Muray collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter active between 1925 and 1954. She began painting while bedridden due to a bus accident that left her seriously injured.
Most of her work consists of self-portraits, which deal directly with her struggle with medical issues, infertility, and her troubeparate Frida on which to project her anguish and pain. Scholars have interpreted her self-portraits as a way for Kahlo to reclaim her body from medical issues and gender conformity.
In particular, scholars have interpreted her self-portraits in the context of the tradition of male European artists using the female body as the subject of their paintings and an object of desire. Kahlo, using her own image, reclaims this use from the patriarchal tradition. The autobiographical details of her life found in these works as well as her characteristic brows, elaborate hair, and vibrant Mexican clothing has made her a popular figure in Mexico and the Uni