Muray purchased the self-portrait from Kahlo to help her during a difficult financial period. It is part of the Ransom Center's Nickolas Muray collection of more than 100 works of modern Mexican art, which was acquired by the Center in 1966. The collection also includes Still Life with Parrot and Fruit (1951) and the drawing Diego y Yo (1930) by Kahlo.

Editor's Note: Read the Fall 2008 publication,  The Hybrid Sources of Frida Kahlo by John Zarobell* from the Center for Latin American Studies, UC Berkeley from which the following is quoted:

In Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, 1940, her debt to both Catholic and Mesoamerican religious symbolism is visible in the use of the crown of thorns, which has here become a necklace, and the hummingbird, an Aztec mythological symbol. Yet it is difficult to look at the background of this painting without  thinking of the fantasy jungle paintings of Henri Rousseau (1844-1910), such as Landscape with Monkeys, c.1910.

*John Zarobell was the Coordinating Curator for the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Top:  Frida Kahlo (Mexican, 1907-1954). Still Life with Parrot and Fruit, 1951. Oil on canvas. 10 1/2 x 14 in. (26.7 x 35.6 cm).
Nickolas Muray Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin.

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