A famous Frida Kahlo's self-portrait is coming back home this Saturday
08 August 2025
Frida Kahlo’s "Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird" will return to public view at the Harry Ransom Center, Austin, Texas this Saturday.
The painting, acquired by the center in 1965, is one of 55 self-portraits Kahlo created and has been exhibited worldwide, most recently in Australia. Curator Tracy Bonfitto says it was painted in 1940, a peak creative period for Kahlo marked by personal upheaval, including her divorce from Diego Rivera and the end of her long relationship with photographer Nickolas Muray, to whom she gifted the work. Kahlo remarried Rivera later that year.
The self-portrait entered the Ransom Center as part of Muray’s collection, which also includes Kahlo’s Still Life with Parrot and Fruit and Diego y Yo, along with works by Mexican modernists Rufino Tamayo and Miguel Covarrubias. Though their romance ended in 1939, Kahlo and Muray stayed in close contact, and he supported her career until her death in 1954.
Currently, the self-portrait is the only piece from the Muray collection on display, but the full set is slated for exhibition in 2027 (Nickolas Muray, Collector Art and Intellectual Networks)
Read here the complete KUT-News article.
