Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair

“Look, if I loved you it was because of your hair. Now that you are without hair, I don’t love you anymore,” are the song lyrics written in Spanish across the top of the painting. Painted shortly after her divorce from artist Diego Rivera, this painting portrays Frida seated in the center with a pair of scissors in one hand and a lock of her formerly long hair in the other. This masculine image of Frida with short hair and a large boxy men’s suit is quite a departure from her appearance in previous self portraits, with flowers in her long braided hair and colorful long dresses. In a surrealist fashion, the almost animate locks of hair scattered across the floor represent Frida’s estrangement from Rivera in this stage of their tumultuous relationship as she tried to distort the aspects of her physical appearance that attracted him.

Creator: Frida Kahlo

Date: 1940

Original Medium: Oil on canvas

Original Size: 15 3/4 x 11 in.

Location: The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, U.S.A.

Sizing/Prices