Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair
Frida Kahlo
(Mexican, 1907–1954)
1940. Oil on canvas, 15 3/4 x 11" (40 x 27.9 cm)
Kahlo cut her hair short a month after her divorce from fellow artist Diego Rivera, and she painted this self-portrait soon after. Instead of one of the traditional Mexican dresses that she is often shown wearing, here she depicted herself wearing an over sized men’s suit and crimson shirt: which is thought to be possibly Rivera’s. Her masculine haircut and garments contrast with her delicate, dangling earrings and petite high-heeled shoes. Kahlo holds a pair of scissors in one hand and a lock of hair in the other, with hair scattered all over the floor. In the background, there is a sequence of musical notes. These are lyrics from a Mexican folk song that, when translated, read: “Look, if I loved you it was because of your hair. Now that you are without hair, I don’t love you anymore.”
For some, Kahlo may have made this portrait to mourn the absence of her ex-husband, who had been unfaithful (and whom she would remarry by the end of 1940). For others, this image is a declaration of Kahlo’s self-reliance and independence.
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