Ransom Center Magazine

Frida Kahlo

Meet the Staff: Diana Diaz Cañas, Photograph Conservator

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Meet the Staff is a Q&A series on Cultural Compass that highlights the work, experience, and lives of staff at the Harry Ransom Center. Diana has a Bachelor of Arts in Conservation from Bogotá, Colombia and she specialized in Photograph conservation in Mexico City, Mexico. She has worked in private workshops and labs and came to the Ransom Center following her work at the Frida Kahlo Museum and the National School for Conservation (ENCRyM) both in Mexico City.

[Read more…] about Meet the Staff: Diana Diaz Cañas, Photograph Conservator

Frida Kahlo’s "Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird" back on display today

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Photo by Pete Smith.
Photo by Pete Smith.

Mexican artist Frida Kahlo’s Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940), one of the Ransom Center’s most famous and frequently borrowed works of art, is on display through July 28.

Since 1990 the painting has been on almost continuous loan, featured in exhibitions in more than 25 museums in the United States and around the world in countries such as Australia, Canada, France, and Spain.

The painting was most recently on view in the three-venue exhibition In Wonderland: The Surrealist Activities of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States, organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and exhibited subsequently at the Musée National des beaux-arts du Quebec in Quebec City and at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City. The painting travels next to The ARKEN Museum of Modern Art in Ishøj, Denmark, for the exhibition Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera, running from September 7, 2013 to January 5, 2014.

Kahlo (1907–1954) taught herself to paint after she was severely injured in a bus accident at the age of 18. For Kahlo, painting became an act of cathartic ritual, and her symbolic images portray a cycle of pain, death, and rebirth.

Kahlo’s affair in New York City with Hungarian-born photographer Nickolas Muray (1892–1965), which ended in 1939, and her divorce from artist Diego Rivera at the end of that same year left her heartbroken and lonely. But she produced some of her most powerful and compelling paintings and self-portraits during this time.

Muray purchased the self-portrait from Kahlo to help her during a difficult financial period. It is part of the Ransom Center’s Nickolas Muray collection of more than 100 works of modern Mexican art, which was acquired by the Center in 1966. The collection also includes Kahlo’s Still Life with Parrot and Fruit (1951) and the drawing Diego y Yo (1930).

View the video documentary “A World of Interest: Frida Kahlo’s Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird,” which highlights the painting’s return to the Ransom Center.

The company she keeps: Frida’s work among women surrealists at LACMA

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Frida Kahlo’s 'Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird' (1940) on display in LACMA’s 'In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States.' ©2012 Museum Associates/LACMA.
Frida Kahlo’s 'Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird' (1940) on display in LACMA’s 'In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States.' ©2012 Museum Associates/LACMA.

The Ransom Center recently loaned Frida Kahlo’s Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940) to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) for the exhibition In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States.

Co-organized by LACMA and the Museo de Arte Moderno (MAM) in Mexico City, In Wonderland is the first large-scale international survey of women surrealist artists in North America. On view at LACMA through May 6, In Wonderland features about 175 works by 47 artists, including Kahlo, Lee Miller, Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, Dorothea Tanning, Louise Bourgeois, and more.

Vogue highlights some of the works of the “beautiful dreamers” that can be seen in the exhibition.

Co-curated by Dr. Ilene Susan Fort, LACMA’s Gail and John Liebes Curator of American Art, and Tere Arcq, MAM’s Adjunct Curator, the exhibition will also travel to the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, from June 7 to September 3; and the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City, from September 27 through January 13, 2013.

Kahlo (1907 – 1954) taught herself how to paint after she was severely injured in an accident at the age of 18. For Kahlo, painting became an act of cathartic ritual, and her symbolic images portray a cycle of pain, death, and rebirth.

Kahlo’s affair in New York City with Hungarian-born photographer Nickolas Muray (1892 – 1965), which ended in 1939, and her divorce from artist Diego Rivera at the end of the year, left her heartbroken and lonely. She produced some of her most powerful and compelling paintings and self-portraits during this time.

Muray purchased Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird from Kahlo to help her during a difficult financial period. It is part of the Ransom Center’s Nickolas Muray collection of more than 100 works of modern Mexican art, which was acquired by the Center in 1966. The collection also includes Still Life with Parrott and Fruit (1951) and the drawing Diego y Yo (1930) by Kahlo.

Kahlo scholar and biographer Hayden Herrera spoke about “Frida Kahlo: Her Life and Art” at the Ransom Center in June 2009, referencing sources of inspiration for Kahlo’s art.

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