by
Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Page created on March 2, 2018 / Page updated on October 6, 2026
Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000

Introduction

In Self-Portrait (Time Flies), Frida Kahlo faces the viewer beneath a small aircraft, while an alarm clock stands on a twisted column beside her. The picture is usually dated circa 1929, the year she married Diego Rivera, but no verified month places its making before or after the wedding. Its familiar title is a visual joke as well as an invitation to think about time: the plane literally flies, while the clock measures its passage. [1] [2] [3]

The portrait also shows an artist developing a distinctive public image. A light blouse and substantial jewellery stand against dark curtains, a blue opening and modern devices. Scholars have read that combination through Mexican popular portraiture, cultural self-definition and modern technology; none of those readings requires the sitter's face to be treated as a transparent report of happiness or pain. [2] [4] [5]

At a Glance

  • Titles and date: Self-Portrait (Time Flies) / Autorretrato (El tiempo vuela), circa 1929. [1] [2] [3]
  • Medium and size: Oil on Masonite, 77.5 × 61 cm; older published measurements conflict. [1] [2] [3] [6]
  • Collection and display: California private collection in the 2021 caption; current owner and public display unverified. [1]
  • Related study: An inverted preparatory sketch appears on the reverse of the separate 1929 Portrait of Virginia panel. [25]

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Looking at the Painting
  3. Why Is It Called Time Flies?
  4. A Self-Portrait in Transition
  5. Dress, Jewellery and Mexican Identity
  6. What Does the Marriage Year Explain?
  7. Material, Size and a Published Disagreement
  8. Collectors and the 2000 Sotheby’s Sale
  9. Where Is the Painting Now?

Looking at the Painting

Kahlo occupies the centre of a tall composition, visible from about mid-torso. Her hair is parted in the middle and drawn back; both ears and their long, coloured earrings are visible. She looks outward with a closed mouth and warm colour in her cheeks. Those visible features do not establish that she felt confident, newly married or free of pain when she painted it. [7]

The short-sleeved blouse is light in colour and has openwork edging. Rounded dark green-grey beads form a conspicuous necklace, with a larger pendant at its centre. The reproduction does not establish whether the beads are jade, where the jewellery was made, or whether the pendant bears a particular glyph; those more specific identifications belong to later interpretation, not to unaided description. [7] [8]

Heavy, nearly dark-green curtains enter from both sides and are gathered with red-orange cords and tassels. They reveal a blue space crossed by a balcony-like rail. On the viewer's right, a spiral or Solomonic column supports a small alarm clock; towards the viewer's upper left, a tiny propeller aircraft passes through the blue field. The opposing placements balance the image without making it perfectly symmetrical. [7]

The clock appears to show a time shortly before three. Art historian Sharyn Udall reads its hands as 2:52, but the available image and object records do not secure an exact minute or show that Kahlo deliberately set one. The aircraft is equally small: it is a propeller plane, not a visually identifiable model or flight. [7] [8] [9]

This arrangement gives the background an active role. The cords and curtains draw attention inward, while the balcony, sky, plane and clock keep the portrait open to a world beyond the sitter. The strong contrast between blouse, drapery and blue opening is observable; the idea that the scene is a stage for self-presentation is a critical reading developed especially in French and Portuguese scholarship. [5] [10]

Watch: Frida Kahlo

Five perspectives to view here alongside the article.

Frida Kahlo’s The Two Fridas: Great Art Explained

Great Art Explained

A focused visual introduction to the painting and its context.

Why Is It Called Time Flies?

The title's most direct explanation joins two things that can be seen: a clock and an aircraft. Andrea Kettenmann describes the pictorial play on el tiempo pasa volando, or time passing as if in flight. A specialist IFAR Journal study and a Portuguese thesis also identify the clock-and-plane conjunction as a visual pun. The agreement is substantial because all three discuss this painting, not a general list of symbols in Kahlo's work. [2] [3] [10]

The joke does not fix the painting's emotional register. Kettenmann allows a playful aspect, while some later commentators seek mortality, impatience or release from suffering. No checked letter, diary passage or early inscription explains what Kahlo meant by the plane and clock together, or even proves that she assigned the title at the moment of making. The established interpretation is the pictorial wordplay; a single psychological message is not established. [2] [3] [7]

Udall offers a more intricate possibility. Taking the clock to read 2:52, she wonders whether the numbers allude to 1652 and Velázquez's Queen Mariana of Austria, whose formal portrait setting she compares with Kahlo's curtains. The comparison is worth noticing, but a clock reading that cannot be verified to the minute cannot become proof of a deliberately encoded date. Nor does a resemblance establish that Kahlo copied a particular European painting. [8]

Udall also proposes that the clock functions like a second, mechanical face near Kahlo's own and that the twisted column can be related to the spine. The proximity of clock and head and the column's visible spiral make these intelligible visual prompts. A bodily meaning, however, remains her interpretation; this portrait does not show an injured column or a medical apparatus, and no artist statement assigns one to it. [7] [8]

She further considers whether the aircraft recalls Charles Lindbergh's celebrated 1927 Mexico visit or Mexican aviator Emilio Carranza, who died in 1928. These are period associations, not identifications of the tiny painted plane: no legible mark singles out a pilot, route or event. The stronger historical observation is that an aeroplane and an alarm clock bring contemporary movement and measured time into a portrait furnished with older-looking drapery and jewellery. [8] [11]

Self-Portrait (Time Flies) in Kahlo’s career

Timeline source: Museo Frida Kahlo chronology [26].

A Self-Portrait in Transition

Kahlo had already made Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress in 1926, so Time Flies was not her first self-portrait. Kettenmann contrasts the earlier work's mannered pose and dark velvet with the later picture's more frontal presentation and market-style cotton blouse. The comparison marks a change in pictorial choices, not a simple progress from an inauthentic European self to an authentic Mexican one. [2] [12]

An unfinished Portrait of a Woman in White, made around the same period, provides an even closer formal comparison. The IFAR Journal article and a Christie’s catalogue essay identify the white garment, upright sitter, blue opening, balcony rail and curtains tied with heavy cords in both works. Similarities show Kahlo working through a compositional vocabulary, but they do not make one painting a preparatory study for the other or settle the unfinished portrait's disputed sitter identity. [3] [13]

Joëlle Guyot, writing in French, places the frontal figure and curtain setting in conversation with transformed Mexican popular-portrait conventions. Her argument resists treating the picture as biography with decorative details attached: structure, historical models and artistic selection matter in their own right. A Portuguese university study likewise takes the curtains as a device that frames a deliberately presented self, not as a literal record of a room in which Kahlo sat. [5] [10]

Udall sees a further tension between older portrait formality and the technologies of flight and clock time. This makes the painting more than either a timeless folk image or a miniature celebration of modern machinery. Kahlo locates her recognisable face at their intersection, although the exact historical associations proposed for each object remain open. [8]

There is also a material clue to the development of this self-image. A 2022 catalogue made with the Museo Dolores Olmedo identifies an inverted sketch for Autorretrato con aeroplano on the reverse of Kahlo's separate 1929 La niña Virginia. The drawn adult figure has a frontal pose, pulled-back hair, earrings and a necklace with a pendant, linking it to the finished self-portrait. It does not yet show the final curtains, balcony, column, clock or aircraft, so it is evidence for figure planning rather than a complete first version of Time Flies. [25]

The sketch and the child portrait occupy opposite faces of the Virginia panel, not the front and back of the finished self-portrait. Although the owner-linked catalogue calls it preparatory, it does not establish which face of the Virginia panel Kahlo worked on first, how she transferred the figure, or why she used both sides. The Virginia painting's museum ownership and dimensions must not be applied to Time Flies. [25]

Dress, Jewellery and Mexican Identity

The blouse, necklace and earrings give Kahlo's self-presentation a markedly different texture from the velvet portrait. Kettenmann connects the market cotton blouse and new frontal manner with post-revolutionary Mexicanism and an artistic milieu that included Adolfo Best Maugard. That is a historically grounded account of change in her visual language, not evidence that Rivera selected these particular clothes or directed the composition. [2]

A Spanish-language UNAM thesis reads the white blouse, necklace and red-green-white accents as a declaration of Mexican cultural identity, while a Portuguese thesis links clothing and curtain staging to popular portrait traditions. These arguments help explain why the accessories attract close attention. They do not establish the geographic origin, age or physical substance of each bead and earring, which would require an examination or documented jewellery record. [10] [11]

In a 2000 interview, art historian Luis-Martín Lozano associated the little aeroplane with the drawing of Adolfo Best Maugard, a figure also present in Kettenmann's account of the period. The interview does not identify a particular drawing that Kahlo copied. His suggestion is therefore a lead about artistic context, not an established source image for the plane. [2] [16]

Udall gives the jewellery a more precise iconographic role: she describes carved jade and interprets a design on the pendant as an Aztec movement sign, setting historical time against the clock. Christie’s comparison with Portrait of a Woman in White also calls the beads jade and reads the blouse through mestiza and Tehuana identity. Those published interpretations can be considered, but the available reproduction cannot independently confirm jade or a glyph, and the painting's crop does not display a complete Tehuana skirt, headdress or regional ensemble. [7] [8] [13]

The useful distinction is between a visible choice and a fixed label. Kahlo depicts a light, openwork-edged blouse and substantial jewellery; scholars connect them with popular clothing, pre-Hispanic or colonial histories and Mexicanist self-fashioning. The portrait does not license the shorthand that she is wearing a fully documented “Tehuana costume,” nor does it prove that every element was chosen to please her husband. The wider history of her dress belongs beyond this single picture. [2] [7] [14]

What Does the Marriage Year Explain?

Museo Frida Kahlo dates Kahlo and Rivera's marriage in Coyoacán to 21 August 1929; Kettenmann gives the same date. The current catalogue says the painting was made circa 1929, while older sources commonly state 1929 without qualification. Neither dating form supplies a month, so the portrait cannot be labelled a response to the wedding simply because the events share a year. [1] [2] [15]

Christie's reproduces Kahlo's later recollection, mediated through Salomon Grimberg, that she painted a self-portrait while living at Paseo de la Reforma and that a move to Coyoacán affected her use of backgrounds and “Mexican things.” Grimberg's editorial insertion identifies the unnamed self-portrait as Time Flies. The testimony is valuable because it gives Kahlo's own retrospective account of a changing practice, but the exact page of Song of Herself has not been read here and the bracketed identification is not her own wording. [13]

Kettenmann describes the sitter as more fresh and self-assured than in the 1926 velvet picture. That comparison is an art historian's reading of expression and presentation, not a document of Kahlo's state of mind or marital happiness. Guyot's warning against biography-only explanation is particularly apt: the clock, plane, costume and staging deserve attention even when the marriage date is known. [2] [5] [7]

Nor does the lack of visible wounds, tears or medical devices establish that Kahlo was physically well. A self-portrait is an arrangement of chosen visual facts, not a medical record. Claims that the aircraft necessarily means escape from the 1925 accident, or that the clock counts time since it, have not been supported by a specific statement from the artist. [7]

Material, Size and a Published Disagreement

The 2021 catalogue-publicity caption identifies oil on Masonite and gives 77.5 × 61 cm. The complete 2013 IFAR Journal article supplies the same material and dimensions, as does a contemporary Mexican pre-sale report for the size. These independent, object-specific records make 77.5 × 61 cm the strongest measurement presently available for the page. Kettenmann's term “fibreboard” is broadly compatible with Masonite, though no technical file has been inspected to establish manufacturer, thickness or paint structure. [1] [2] [3] [16]

There is a real conflict in the published sizes. Kettenmann's plate legend gives 86 × 68 cm, while Udall's article prints 31¾ × 27½ inches, approximately 80.6 × 69.9 cm. Neither agrees with the current 77.5 × 61 cm figure, and they do not agree with each other after conversion. No checked source labels one figure as framed or explains a remeasurement, so averaging them or inventing a frame explanation would conceal rather than resolve the discrepancy. [2] [8]

The same caution applies to the finished self-portrait beyond its listed medium. Its own reverse, original frame, conservation report, complete inscription record and condition file have not been examined; the sketch on the reverse of La niña Virginia is a different physical object. The available reproduction supports a visual account of the front of Time Flies, but it cannot show that panel's construction, pigments, restoration history or exact original colour. [7] [25]

Collectors and the 2000 Sotheby’s Sale

The painting's early ownership remains incomplete. A June 2000 report in La Nación associates it with the former collections of engineer Eduardo Morillo Safa and Dolores Olmedo, but does not supply dates and documents for their transfers. Morillo Safa was a substantial Kahlo patron: institutional accounts say he acquired around thirty works and commissioned portraits of five family members. A pre-sale report's phrase suggesting Time Flies was painted for him is not enough to establish that this 1929 self-portrait was one of those commissions. [16] [17] [18]

Later ownership of an early painting is not the same as its original commission. Christie’s records another Kahlo work from 1931–32 that Morillo Safa acquired directly from the artist in 1953, demonstrating why the two events must not be conflated. For Time Flies, a first buyer, intended recipient or commission document has not been located. [19]

The Smithsonian's Peter A. Juley & Son photograph record identifies the painting by its window, clock and aircraft and associates it with Sotheby’s New York sale 7485, lot 15, on 31 May 2000. La Jornada announced an estimate of $3–4 million and a viewing itinerary through Seattle, Los Angeles, Paris, Lausanne and Miami before New York. Those stops were auction previews, not evidence that the painting appeared in museum exhibitions in each city. [16] [20]

La Nación reported a final price of $5,065,750 including commission, and Artnet's contemporary market report gives the same result. Artnet named Pamela Zauderer-Bryan as the seller and said an anonymous American private collector bought through an agent. The figure was reported as a record at the time; it is a 2000 transaction price, not a present valuation or the unqualified hammer bid. [17] [21]

The complete Sotheby’s sale catalogue has not been consulted. Its lot entry may clarify provenance wording, inscriptions, measurements, literature and exhibition history. Contemporary journalism and Smithsonian's lot identifier are strong evidence for the sale event, but neither can stand in for that missing object entry. [20] [22]

Where Is the Painting Now?

A PBS educational list credited the collection of “Antony Bryan” in 2005. The IFAR Journal figure caption credited the “Anthony Bryan Collection” in 2013, using a different spelling. The 2021 catalogue-publicity caption instead says California, private collection. These are dated public credits; they do not prove when a transfer happened or whether each name described the same legal owner. [1] [3] [23]

No current public item-level display has been verified. The cited records do not establish a secure original-object exhibition history; a book illustration or reproduction does not prove that the painting itself travelled. Readers should therefore not be directed to a museum room on the basis of the 2000 auction previews or a dated collection list. [7] [22]

Further Reading and Open Questions

The entry at page 491, catalogue number 28, of Luis-Martín Lozano, Andrea Kettenmann and Marina Vázquez Ramos's Frida Kahlo: The Complete Paintings remains unconsulted. A published research table provides that locator, while the publisher describes a large survey of the paintings; the public plate caption used here is not the catalogue entry. Its exact provenance, exhibition and technical statements cannot be supplied until that page and its notes are read. [1] [24]

Kettenmann's earlier Spanish monograph has been consulted at its relevant text and plate pages, making its visual analysis and conflicting measurement visible here. Udall's complete article was read through an OCR copy checked against JSTOR's bibliographic record, not through a verified original PDF; her formal ideas are presented as proposals accordingly. Guyot's French article and the relevant Spanish and Portuguese university pages were read at their exact passages, giving the picture a wider scholarly context without borrowing unsupported object facts from them. [2] [5] [8] [10] [11]

The Sotheby's 2000 lot entry and page 75 of Grimberg's Frida Kahlo: Song of Herself remain the next exact sources for further study. Gannit Ankori's books on Kahlo's life and self-imaging are relevant further reading, but no passages on this painting have been verified in them. None of these unread books is used here as if it had already supplied an answer. [13] [22] [24]

The artist's 1926 Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress provides the earlier formal comparison. Portrait of Virginia explains the separate panel bearing a preparatory sketch, while fashion and Tehuana dress places the blouse and jewellery in a broader history of self-presentation. Frieda and Diego Rivera depicts the couple in 1931 without settling this portrait's exact making month.

Frequently Asked Questions

That sequence has not been established. The marriage was on 21 August 1929, but the painting's current date is circa 1929 and no verified execution month places it before or after the ceremony. [1] [15]

It appears to be shortly before three. Udall proposes 2:52 and a possible historical allusion, but the precise minute and intended reference remain unproved. [7] [8]

The visible crop shows a light blouse, necklace and earrings, not a complete outfit. Scholars have related these items to Mexicanist and regional traditions, but neither garment construction nor the precise material and origin of the jewellery has been confirmed from the painting's available record. [7] [13] [14]

The most recent checked catalogue credit says California, private collection. No current public display or complete original-object exhibition list has been verified. [1] [22]

Discussion

Use the cited evidence and your own close looking to explain your view. The prompts below are starting points, not fixed interpretations.

Reader Insights

Close Looking

What makes the title's reference to time more than a caption for the visible clock?

Context

How do dress and jewellery participate in Kahlo's self-fashioning?

Open Question

Why is the marriage year context rather than a complete explanation?

Join the Conversation

Which reading best fits the evidence, and where does uncertainty remain?

References

  1. TASCHEN, Frida Kahlo: The Complete Paintings publisher record and the public p.63 image caption reproduced in It’s Nice That, image six: current title, circa date, oil on Masonite, 77.5 × 61 cm and California private-collection credit. The p.491 catalogue entry is unread. View source text 1; View source text 2.
  2. Andrea Kettenmann, Frida Kahlo: dolor y pasión, Spanish edition, physical pp.25–27 / printed pp.22–24; plate physical p.31; legend physical p.97 / printed p.94 in the complete consulted research copy: the clock and aircraft, blouse, comparison with the 1926 portrait, Mexicanism, 21 August marriage and the published 86 × 68 cm variant. The library link identifies the edition, not access to those exact pages. View source text.
  3. Salomon Grimberg, Jane C. H. Jacob and Laurent Sozzani, “Two Frida Kahlo Portraits: One Found, One Confirmed”, IFAR Journal 14, no. 3 (2013), journal p.27 / PDF p.6, fig.10 and comparison text: oil on Masonite, 77.5 × 61 cm, Anthony Bryan Collection and the woman-in-white comparison; complete article and exact page read. The linked PDF is hosted by co-author Jane C. H. Jacob. View source text.
  4. The formal comparison draws on Kettenmann (reference 2), Guyot's French article (reference 5), Udall (reference 8), and the UNAM and UFG theses (references 10–11). These are attributed readings, not evidence of Kahlo's emotional state. View source text.
  5. Joëlle Guyot, “Mythes identitaires et histoire dans l’œuvre de Frida Kahlo,” América 3, 1988, printed pp.81–99, especially pp.86–87: formal, historical and popular-portrait reading; complete French article and relevant page images read. View source text.
  6. Sharyn R. Udall, “Frida Kahlo's Mexican Body: History, Identity, and Artistic Aspiration,” Woman's Art Journal 24, no. 2 (Autumn 2003–Winter 2004), pp.10–14, plate note: historical size variant; complete OCR text checked against JSTOR metadata, original PDF not obtained. View source text.
  7. Author's visual observations from the TASCHEN publicity image reproduced in It's Nice That, image six, compared with the IFAR figure (reference 3). The available reproductions support visible forms, not physical examination, exact colour or republication rights; the painting is not reproduced here. View source text.
  8. Sharyn R. Udall, “Frida Kahlo's Mexican Body: History, Identity, and Artistic Aspiration”, Woman's Art Journal 24, no. 2 (2003–04), pp.10–11 and plate note. The complete argument was read in an OCR copy checked against JSTOR's bibliographic record; 2:52, Velázquez, mechanical-face, spine-column, pendant and aviation readings remain attributed proposals. View source text.
  9. Merry Mac Masters, “El autorretrato de Kahlo dedicado a Trotski, por primera vez en México,” La Jornada, 24 April 2000, paragraphs on Time Flies: Luis-Martín Lozano's near-three reading; the article's conflicting 22 August wedding date is not adopted. View source text.
  10. Fernanda Rodrigues de Assunção, O universo de Frida Kahlo à sombra da experiência revolucionária mexicana, Universidade Federal de Goiás master's thesis (2013), physical PDF pp.38–39 and 48: Portuguese discussion of visual pun, curtains, dress and staged/popular portraiture; exact pages rendered. View source text.
  11. Carlos Omar Segoviano Rodríguez, La Fridomanía: Difusión y comunicación de la imagen de Frida Kahlo, UNAM thesis (2011), physical PDF pp.56–57 / printed pp.41–42 and physical p.136 / printed p.121: Spanish discussion of Mexicanist dress, colour and the traditional/modern contrast; exact pages rendered. View source text.
  12. Tate's Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress object page identifies the separate 1926 canvas. The formal comparison does not transfer its dedication, recipient or dimensions to Time Flies; see the individual study. View source text.
  13. Christie's, Portrait of a Lady in White catalogue entry, 2019, complete Herrera, Abby McEwen and Luis-Martín Lozano essays, especially the comparison paragraphs and note 7 citing Grimberg, Song of Herself, p.75; this is a separate unfinished painting, and Grimberg's exact page remains unread. View source text.
  14. The Brooklyn Museum's Appearances Can Be Deceiving exhibition overview documents Kahlo's assembled appearance, while the fashion and Tehuana dress guide distinguishes regional ensembles. The visible blouse and jewellery do not establish a complete Tehuana outfit. View source text.
  15. Museo Frida Kahlo, 1928–30 chronology, 21 August 1929 Coyoacán marriage and 1930 San Francisco transition; no exact date for this portrait is given. View source text.
  16. Mac Masters, La Jornada, 24 April 2000, paragraphs on Time Flies: 77.5 × 61 cm, $3–4 million estimate, sale date, preview itinerary and Lozano's Best Maugard association; “painted for Morillo” and the 22 August wedding date are held or rejected rather than adopted. View source text.
  17. La Nación, “Precio récord por una obra de Frida Kahlo”, 1 June 2000, sale-result and collection paragraphs: $5,065,750 including commission and reported Morillo Safa / Dolores Olmedo associations; historical record claim belongs to 2000. View source text.
  18. Casa de México en España / Museo Dolores Olmedo, “Retrato del ingeniero Eduardo Morillo Safa” and Art Gallery of New South Wales, “Lines of connection”, patronage and family portrait commissions, not evidence that this portrait was commissioned. View source text 1; View source text 2.
  19. Christie's, Window Display on a Detroit Street provenance, separate 1931–32 painting acquired by Morillo Safa directly from Kahlo in 1953; a methodological comparison, not provenance for this portrait. View source text.
  20. Smithsonian Institution, Peter A. Juley & Son photograph record, object topics and Sotheby's sale 7485, 31 May 2000, lot 15; image and negative records do not establish owner or reproduction rights. View source text.
  21. Artnet News, 1 June 2000 market report, paragraph on Time Flies: $3–4 million estimate, $5,065,750 result, Pamela Zauderer-Bryan and anonymous American buyer through an agent. View source text.
  22. The Smithsonian's photograph record identifies Sotheby's New York sale 7485, lot 15 (31 May 2000). The 280-page catalogue's bibliographic record identifies the edition, not an accessible lot entry; no original-object exhibition checklist or current display is established by these sources. View source text 1; View source text 2.
  23. PBS/WETA, “Where to Find Frida's Paintings”, 2005 Self-Portrait (Time Flies) row crediting Collection of Antony Bryan; dated educational list, not a current owner database. View source text.
  24. Federico E. Turkheimer and colleagues, “The art of pain,” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2022, Table 1 Self portrait time flies row locating The Complete Paintings p.491/cat.28; TASCHEN's publisher record identifies the book, not its unread catalogue entry. Gannit Ankori's two complete books remain unread. View source text 1; View source text 2.
  25. Fundación Casa de México en España / Museo Dolores Olmedo, Frida Kahlo: alas para volar catalogue, 2022, physical PDF pp.25–27 and 64 / printed pp.21–23 and 60: identifies the inverted reverse of the separate La niña Virginia as Boceto para Autorretrato con aeroplano. Complete local PDF and exact pages read and rendered; the catalogue's figure and caption establish the limited preparatory relationship. The Virginia panel's size and ownership are not transferred to Time Flies. View source text.
  26. Museo Frida Kahlo, Frida interactive chronology, selected work dates used for the comparison timeline. The current work's date follows its cited object record. View source text.