Description
Self-Portrait with Monkey (1938) shows Frida Kahlo from the chest up, her eyes fixed on the viewer, with a small dark spider monkey in the lower left corner and a pale, bone-like necklace around her throat, while dense green leaves crowd in behind her. The original, oil on masonite, is 40.6 cm high and 30.5 cm wide and belongs to the Albright–Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York. Our painter makes it for you hand-painted in oil colours on canvas, in one of two portrait sizes, 40 x 51 or 45 x 60 cm, and before it leaves us you receive a photograph of it.
| Title: | Self-Portrait with Monkey (1938) |
| Other titles: | Autorretrato con mono · Selbstporträt mit Affe (1938) |
| Painter: | Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) |
| Year painted: | 1938 |
| Original size: | 40.6 cm x 30.5 cm (height x width) |
| Original technique: | Oil on masonite |
| Painting style: | Mexican modernism |
| Located at: | Albright–Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo AKG Art Museum), Buffalo, New York |
| Our reproduction: | Hand-painted oil on canvas, 2 sizes or made to measure |
Self-Portrait with Monkey (1938) – Frida Kahlo
What does Self-Portrait with Monkey (1938) show?
Kahlo painted herself from the chest up, head turned slightly into three-quarter view while her eyes look straight at us. Her dark brows meet above the bridge of the nose in one thick arc, her full lips are a deep red, and the faintest shadow sits above the upper lip.
Her hair is plaited and wound high around her head; green strands glint in the dark mass and echo the leaves behind her.
In the lower left corner crouches a tiny spider monkey with shaggy black fur, a pale muzzle and big round eyes. It too stares straight out of the painting, as if sharing the artist’s gaze, and beside it a thin green ribbon winds downwards.
A thick, yellowish-white necklace curls around her neck, recalling carved bone or a row of vertebrae. On the right it ends close to her shoulder in a white ornament shaped like a shell.
The background is packed with huge green leaves with clearly drawn veins, pale and translucent in places, dark and shaded in others. A small patch of blue sky opens in the top left corner.
At what point in her life was it painted?
Wikipedia calls 1937 and 1938 exceptionally productive years: Kahlo painted more then than in all her earlier years of marriage to Diego Rivera put together.
In April 1938 the French Surrealist André Breton visited Rivera; Kahlo impressed him so much that he wrote to the New York dealer Julien Levy, who invited her to hold her first solo exhibition at his gallery.
Whether this particular self-portrait was among the works she showed in New York, the sources we rely on do not say, so we make no such claim.
Why does this picture draw in Kahlo’s admirers?
Among the signs from Aztec mythology that recur in her work, Wikipedia names monkeys outright, alongside skeletons, skulls, blood and hearts. This self-portrait is one of the most direct examples: the animal sits right against the artist, almost like a double.
The same article notes that in her self-portraits her face is often still as a mask, ringed by visual clues from which the viewer reads a deeper meaning for themselves. Here the monkey and the necklace are those clues, while the face stays composed and grave.
Many of her works are built on pairs of opposites such as life and death; in this one, warm living fur sits beside jewellery that brings bone to mind. In the 1940s her pets at the Blue House included spider monkeys, as the Frida Kahlo article on the English Wikipedia mentions; it is about the painter, and there is no separate article on this painting.
Where is the original today?
The original is held by the Albright–Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York State, a museum also known as the Buffalo AKG Art Museum.
Kahlo painted it in oil on masonite, a hard board of pressed wood fibres with a smooth surface and no weave. Year, technique, size and museum are taken from the list of her works on the English Wikipedia; how the painting reached Buffalo our sources do not describe.
What you order from us is made differently: the painter works in oil colours on canvas rather than on hardboard.
Self-Portrait with Monkey (1938) or another Kahlo?
Two years later, in 1940, Kahlo came back to this subject. If you would like to compare both versions, the later one is here as Self-Portrait with Monkey, also painted to order.
From the same year, 1938, comes What the Water Gave Me, which Wikipedia lists among the works of that fertile spell. If you love the animals that kept her company on canvas too, have a look at Itzcuintli Dog with Me and Me and My Parrots.
All the famous Frida Kahlo paintings our painters make to order are gathered on the Frida Kahlo page.
How does our painter handle the monkey, the necklace and the leaves?
Masonite is smooth, so in the original the colours are even and flat and the outlines clean and clear. Our painter first smooths the canvas with several thin coats of primer, so its grain does not override the gentle transitions in the face.
Work begins with the background: dark and light green areas go down first, then the leaves are divided by veins drawn with a fine brush. Only after that does the painter build up, in thin layers, the warm brownish skin, the red lips and the joined brows.
The monkey’s fur is painted in short, dense strokes of black and dark brown so it looks soft, and each round eye gets a tiny white catchlight. The necklace receives a yellowish-white base first, then grey shadows bring out its hardness and polish.
The result is a Frida Kahlo reproduction with real layers of oil paint that you can see and feel on the surface.
Which size suits your wall?
In short: 40 x 51 cm for a bedroom, a hallway or the wall above a desk, 45 x 60 cm for the wall above a chest of drawers or beside a sofa.
For this work we offer only two portrait sizes (width x height): 40 x 51 cm and 45 x 60 cm. Both exceed the original, which measures about 31 x 41 cm: the smaller is 9.5 cm wider and 10.4 cm taller, the larger 14.5 cm wider and 19.4 cm taller.
The 45 x 60 cm size has almost the same proportions as the original, roughly 3 : 4. As a painting for the living room the larger size is the natural pick, hung at eye level beside the sofa, on a narrow stretch of wall between two windows or above a bookcase.
Can I order a different size and a frame?
Should the self-portrait with the monkey need other dimensions, tell us the width and height you have in mind. We check whether it can be painted and reply with a price and a production time.
You can receive the painting rolled, stretched on a wooden stretcher bar or ready framed. Every canvas painting we make is stretched and framed by our workshop in Slovenia.
You pick the frame in our 3D app, which is there for frame choice alone. Showing the painting on a photo of your own wall is a different, separate service.
How do painting and delivery work?
The painter starts as soon as you confirm the order and completes the painting within 15 to 45 working days. Before packing it, we email you a photograph of the finished work; if you would like anything altered, the painter does it before dispatch.
Shipments within Slovenia and to the other countries of the European Union need no customs paperwork. Our returns policy covers every order.
It makes a well-chosen gift for someone who loves Mexican art, animals or rich greens. If you cannot decide which of the two sizes would suit them better, give a wall art voucher and let them choose.
Frequently asked questions
Where can I see the original?
At the Albright–Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, also known as the Buffalo AKG Art Museum.
Which animal sits next to the artist?
A small spider monkey with black fur, which, like Kahlo, looks straight at the viewer.
Is this an oil painting reproduction or a print?
It is painted by hand with brush and oil colours on canvas; no printer plays any part.
How large is the 1938 original?
It is 40.6 cm high and 30.5 cm wide; both of our sizes are larger.
Could I have it in another format?
Write to us with the width and height; we check what is possible and quote the price before you order.
When will my painting arrive?
Painting takes 15 to 45 working days, then we ship it, free of customs within the EU.
Would the monkey self-portrait suit a bedroom, or make a good gift?
Yes. The smaller size looks good above a bed, and the green of the leaves brings freshness to the room.
What does the monkey mean?
Wikipedia counts monkeys among the signs from Aztec mythology that Kahlo liked to paint; it gives no detailed reading of this work.
- Subject: Frida Kahlo from the chest up, with a spider monkey in the lower corner, a bone-like necklace and large green leaves behind.
- Original: 1938, oil on masonite, 40.6 x 30.5 cm, Albright–Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo.
- Ours: a hand-painted copy in oil on canvas, made to your order, in two portrait sizes: 40 x 51 or 45 x 60 cm.
- Worth knowing: Both of our sizes are larger than the original; the bigger one nearly matches its proportions.
