Frida, Self-portrait with monkey and parrot, 1942 by Atelier Liesjes

About "Frida, Self-portrait with monkey and parrot, 1942"

by Atelier Liesjes

About the artwork

"Autorretrato con chango y loro" was painted in the early 1940s, when Frida, after gaining international fame through exhibitions in New York and Paris, was trying to accelerate her output to make a living from painting. The work follows a standard compositional format used in portraits and self-portraits since the early 1920s: the subject, seen from the waist or chest up, occupies a narrow space between the picture plane and a wall of vegetation that sometimes extends to the edges. . This self-portrait is executed with strictly controlled brushstrokes, typical of the paintings she produced at the height of her career. The direct, frontal presentation of the character follows a model partly inspired by popular nineteenth-century portraits, a type Kahlo and Rivera collected and exhibited in their childhood home in Coyoacán, which the artists shared at the time. Yet Kahlo's work is not exactly a naive complacency in such a format, as it is deeply and consciously connected to a broader history of art, from Mannerism to Neue Sachlichkeit (or new objectivity) and even Surrealism, with which she was connected despite her statements.

Magdalena Carmen Frida y Calderón (Coyoacán, Mexico, 6 July 1907 - 13 July 1954) was a Mexican surrealist painter.

Frida's work is characterised by cheerful colours, but contrasted with an alienating atmosphere. She did not shy away from controversy.