Written by Paul Regan, ©paulregan.studio
Frida Kahlo painted herself more than almost any other artist — roughly a third of her surviving work is self-portraiture. Tate Modern’s Frida: The Making of an Icon exhibition (25 June 2026 – 3 January 2027), brings together over 30 of these paintings. If you can’t get to see the exhibition, there’s plenty about the artist online. You might like to start with the Tate Modern website, whilst listening to a review of the exhibition on the BBC’s Front Row podcast, then sit down for a couple of hours to watch one of the many films that have been made about her life and work.
It’s widely written that, after a bus accident at eighteen left her in long-term pain, Kahlo spent much of her recovery in bed with a mirror fixed above her — painting herself was often simply what was in front of her. Her pictures are full of the objects of that experience: medical corsets, thorns and fixings to her spine.
Kahlo is often grouped with the Surrealists — André Breton called her “a self-made Surrealist” — though she always resisted the label, insisting she painted her own reality rather than dreams. She is also recognised for building a strong visual identity out of Mexican culture at a time when European style was dominating.
Lesson idea: Ask your class to bring in three objects that say something about their own life, and sketch out a self-portrait built around them.
‘The Frame’
‘Self Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird’
‘The Broken Column’
‘Self Portrait as a Tehuana’