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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
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Introduction

A vivid red ribbon travels through Frida Kahlo's dark hair, circles her neck and leads the eye towards a small monkey beside her. Behind them, broad leaves press close to the two faces. This 1940 picture is commonly called Self-Portrait with Monkey; the Museo Frida Kahlo gives the more descriptive title Self-Portrait with Monkey and Ribbon on Her Neck. [1] [2]

The ribbon makes the pair look connected, but it does not tell us by itself whether that connection is comforting or constraining. Kahlo's frontal stillness, the animal's alert gaze and its hand across her shoulder invite both possibilities. The portrait rewards attention to those visible relationships before it is made to illustrate a single story about her marriage, pets or health. [1] [3]

At a Glance

  • Work: Self-Portrait with Monkey, also titled Self-Portrait with Monkey and Ribbon on Her Neck. [1] [2]
  • Date: 1940. [1] [2]
  • Medium and size: Oil on fibreboard, 55.2 × 43.5 cm, in Andrea Kettenmann's published catalogue. [2]
  • Distinctive detail: A red ribbon joins the hair-and-neck arrangement to the monkey at Kahlo's side. [1] [2]
  • Historical collection: Kettenmann lists the painting in Otto Atencio Troconis's collection in Caracas. [2]
  • Later public history: Madonna lent the privately held painting to Tate Modern's 2005 Kahlo exhibition. [5] [6]

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Looking at the Painting
  3. The Ribbon and Its Possible Meanings
  4. Which Monkey Self-Portrait Is This?
  5. From a Caracas Collection to a Tate Loan
  6. A Portrait That Resists a Single Answer
  7. Related Reading

Looking at the Painting

Kahlo occupies the foreground almost to the edges. Her dark hair is drawn up with a broad red ribbon, while a second visible course of red winds closely around her neck. The patterned gold cloth over her shoulders and a darker central panel create a warm base beneath her face. [1] [2]

The monkey appears at the viewer's left, partly concealed by foliage. Its small face looks out from the leaves, and one dark arm extends towards Kahlo's opposite shoulder. The contact links the two bodies across the picture rather than placing the animal as a detached accessory. [1] [2]

Large leaves rise behind both heads. They create a shallow, crowded setting rather than a distant landscape; the darker spaces between them make Kahlo's face and the red ribbon more prominent. The leaf wall also makes the animal seem to emerge from the same space as the sitter, even while Kahlo remains firmly in front. [1] [2]

The Museo Frida Kahlo draws attention to the similarity between the angle of Kahlo's face and the monkey's head. It also notes the way the animal's fur seems to mingle with her dark hair, while the red ribbon visually unites them. That is a precise formal reading: it starts with what the painting makes the eye do, without deciding that the monkey can stand for only one emotion. [1]

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.

The Ribbon and Its Possible Meanings

The ribbon can be followed in stages: from the raised hair, around Kahlo's throat and towards the companion at her shoulder. The monkey's arm provides another line of contact. Both make the portrait more tightly knit than a conventional image of a woman posed beside a pet. [1] [2]

Art historian Hayden Herrera reads that tightness uneasily. Discussing this specific 1940 picture, she describes the red ribbon as a metaphorical tie and finds something disturbing in the animal's arm appearing to continue Kahlo's braid. She connects the effect with other bust-length self-portraits in which strands, branches or necklaces seem to encircle Kahlo after her divorce. [3]

Herrera's interpretation is persuasive as one way to feel the pressure of the image, but it is not a statement by Kahlo explaining her intention. The museum's account emphasises resemblance and connection rather than a single threatening meaning. Holding those readings alongside the visible ribbon allows the animal to remain both a close companion and a source of visual tension. [1] [3]

The year 1940 gives the picture a charged historical setting: Kahlo and Diego Rivera had divorced in 1939 and remarried in December 1940. Other self-portraits of that year make markedly different use of things placed near or around her neck. Chronology gives a reason to compare them, but it does not prove that this particular ribbon was addressed to Rivera or encoded a specific episode in their relationship. [1] [3]

Kahlo's monkeys have often been read as affectionate companions or as substitutes for children she could not have. Neither explanation is fixed by the painted animal alone. Writing about the related 1942 monkey-and-parrot picture, art historian James Oles cites Griselda Pollock's strong rejection of the automatic child-substitute reading. That challenge, reported by Oles, is especially useful beside a painting whose ribbon can suggest both attachment and unease. [9]

Oles identifies a small group of monkey self-images and shows that the count changes with which works enter the category. The important point for this portrait is not a total: its red-ribbon arrangement is particular, rather than an interchangeable version of every animal picture Kahlo made. [9]

Self-Portrait with Monkey in Kahlo’s career

Timeline source: Museo Frida Kahlo chronology [10].

Which Monkey Self-Portrait Is This?

Kahlo painted more than one self-portrait with a monkey. The similar English titles have encouraged confusion between distinct objects, and the red ribbon is the quickest way to recognise this 1940 composition. Kettenmann reproduces it as a separate plate and the Museo Frida Kahlo names the ribbon in its title. [1] [2]

An earlier Self-Portrait with Monkey dates from 1938. The Museum of Modern Art's historical exhibition checklist identifies that smaller picture as an oil on masonite, 40.6 × 30.5 cm, bequeathed by A. Conger Goodyear to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo. Those measurements and that Buffalo ownership belong to the 1938 painting, not to the 1940 red-ribbon work. [4]

The 1940 Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird is different again. It includes a monkey but also a black cat and a thorn necklace, and the same checklist places it with the Harry Ransom Center. MALBA's account of its 1942 monkey-and-parrot portrait compares Kahlo's slightly turned pose and compressed wall of plants with this 1940 red-ribbon work. Such comparison identifies a recurring way of arranging a self-image, not the same animal, owner or occasion in every canvas. [4] [9]

MoMA's checklist shows it owned Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair and My Grandparents, My Parents, and I, while listing the 1938 monkey picture in Buffalo. The 1940 red-ribbon portrait belongs to a separate private-collection and exhibition-loan history. [4] [5] [6]

From a Caracas Collection to a Tate Loan

Kettenmann's plate legend names Otto Atencio Troconis's Caracas collection for the 1940 painting. That is a useful historical location, not an account of every transfer before or after it. The picture's later public appearances need to be reconstructed from different dated records rather than treated as a seamless chain. [2]

Art dealer Mary-Anne Martin, recalling the development of the Latin American art market, mentions a larger 1940 Self-Portrait with Monkey sold at Sotheby's in 1979. Her recollection is a valuable lead for the painting's market history, but the accessible account does not show the original auction lot, purchaser or dimensions. It cannot by itself prove the route from the named Caracas collection to a later owner. [7]

In February 2005, Madonna's official website announced that she would lend Self-Portrait with Monkey and My Birth to Tate Modern's Kahlo exhibition. A contemporary Vogue home profile, later republished, describes the monkey portrait in her home shortly before it went to Tate. The loan was a documented moment of public access to a painting otherwise held in a private collection. [5] [6]

More recent Vogue coverage of Madonna's home and collection again identifies the Kahlo portrait among works she showed. This documents continuing public attention to the picture, although a filmed appearance and a magazine report are not a formal ownership certificate or a guarantee of where it is hanging today. The strongest defensible account is therefore a sequence of historical Caracas attribution, a reported 1979 sale, and well-documented later private possession and exhibition loan, with gaps left open. [2] [5] [6] [8]

A Portrait That Resists a Single Answer

The painting's appeal lies partly in how little it settles. The two heads can be read as a pair, yet their expressions remain distinct; the red ribbon can look like a bond and like a tightening line. Kahlo's composed face is surrounded by forms that keep the eye moving between her and the monkey. [1] [3]

Read alongside the 1938 monkey portrait, the 1940 thorn-necklace image and the later animal self-portraits, this work belongs to a sustained exploration of companionship and self-presentation. It is not a generic illustration of Kahlo's suffering. Its particular arrangement of red ribbon, gold cloth, dark leaves and the reaching arm is what makes it identifiable, and what keeps its meanings open. [1] [2] [3] [4]

The Kahlo self-portraits guide compares how she shaped her image across decades. Fulang-Chang and I and Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird offer distinct ways she painted an animal companion without making their details interchangeable. Diego Rivera provides context for the 1939–40 separation and reunion.

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

How does the red ribbon guide your eye between Kahlo and the monkey?

Context

Where do the Museo's formal description and Herrera's more anxious interpretation diverge?

Open Question

Which details keep this 1940 painting distinct from the 1938 Goodyear and 1940 thorn-necklace portraits?

Join the Conversation

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

References

  1. Museo Frida Kahlo, “Frida” chronology, 1940 entry “Self-Portrait with Monkey and Ribbon on Her Neck,” especially its observations on the paired heads, fur, hair and red ribbon. The chronology is not a technical or ownership record. View source text.
  2. Andrea Kettenmann, Frida Kahlo: Dolor y pasión, printed p. 28 lower-left plate and p. 94 plate legend: Autorretrato con mono, 1940, oil on fibreboard, 55.2 × 43.5 cm, then Otto Atencio Troconis collection, Caracas. Relevant pages directly inspected in the locally saved Spanish PDF; the whole volume was not read.
  3. Hayden Herrera, Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo (1983), p. 274, on the ribbon, monkey's arm and post-divorce encircling forms. This is Herrera's interpretation; the relevant page was inspected in a digital text rendering, not the complete book.
  4. Museum of Modern Art, 1993–94 exhibition master checklist, PDF p. 13, entries for the 1938 Goodyear Self-Portrait with Monkey, 1940 Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair and 1940 Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird. The checklist does not list this red-ribbon 1940 portrait as MoMA property. View source text.
  5. Madonna, official site, “Madonna shows us her collection,” 23 February 2005, reporting her announced loans of Self-Portrait with Monkey and My Birth to Tate Modern. View source text.
  6. Vogue, 2005 home profile republished in 2026, paragraph describing Self-Portrait with Monkey in Madonna's home shortly before the Tate exhibition. View source text.
  7. Mary-Anne Martin, “The Latin American Market Comes of Age,” first-person retrospective paragraph beginning “Two years later another, larger, Kahlo…,” reporting a 1979 Sotheby's sale. The original lot sheet and buyer were not inspected. View source text.
  8. Vogue Italia, 2026 article accompanying Madonna's “Objects of Affection” home-video feature. The original video was identified but could not be directly fetched in this research session, so the recent appearance is reported through the accompanying coverage. View source text.
  9. James Oles, MALBA collection essay on the separate 1942 Autorretrato con chango y loro, opening comparison with the privately held 1940 Self-Portrait with Monkey, and note 5 citing Griselda Pollock, “Auto-History: Frida Kahlo's Political Imagining” (2013), p. 35, against the automatic child-substitute interpretation. Pollock's original essay was not directly read here. View source text.
  10. 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.