Frida Kahlo (1907 - 1954)
Mi nana y yo
(My Nanny and I)
1937
oil on plate
30.50 X 34.50 cm
Museo Dolores Olmedo Patiño
The depiction of the female figure as Mother Earth can be explained in terms of the different life stages of the artist and her constantly truncated maternity. Mi nana y yo speaks of the native roots which sustain her and the losses which overwhelm her. Frida Kahlo dressed as a little girl in the style of the 19th-century votive offerings which she collected, feeds on nature itself, represented in this large maternal figure rising from antiquity. The painting was shown at Khalo's first exhibition, in the Julien Levy gallery in New York, where the Surrealist André Breton described it as "the ribbon around a bomb."
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