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Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait Comes Home to UT

Looking for a way to impress your Valentine? Your knowledge about one of the most famous pieces of artwork on the Forty Acres might do the trick.

On Feb. 14, Frida Kahlo’s Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940) will make its way back to UT’s Harry Ransom Center after more than two decades of traveling the world. The 73-year-old painting has been featured in more than 25 museums in the U.S., Australia, Canada, France, and Spain since 1990.

A 20th-century political and artistic icon, Kahlo began painting at age 18 following a tragic bus accident that put her in a full-body cast for three months. Her work reveals the painful sentiments of her recovery and other personal experiences, including miscarriages and a troubled marriage to fellow Mexican painter Diego Rivera.

Following an affair with Kahlo in the 1930s, photographer Nickolas Muray bought Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird to help Kahlo financially.

In 1966, the Ransom Center acquired Muray’s collection of some 100 works of modern Mexican art, including Kahlo’s self-portrait—which has since become one of UT’s most frequently borrowed works of art.

Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird will be on display at the Ransom Center until Sept. 7, when it will be sent to the ARKEN Museum of Modern Art in Ishøj, Denmark, for the museum’s Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera exhibition.

Photo courtesy Cea. via Flickr Creative Commons.

 

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