Self-portrait with Monkey

Over half of Frida Kahlo's paintings are self-portraits. Particularly during her separation and divorce from her husband around 1939, she painted almost exclusively only herself. In all her portraits she seeks to express her current mood. In Mexican mythology, the monkey is the patron of the dance, but also a symbol of lust. Here, however, the artist portrays the animal as a living, tender and soulful being with its arm placed protectively around her neck. In this self-portrait and repeated in others to come, Frida uses a claustrophobic background of a tight curtain of leaves which pushes the image out towards the viewer. This was a style that she borrowed from another artist, Alfredo Ramos Martinez. Frida once said: "I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.”