‘I paint myself,’ Kahlo once said, ‘because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.’ Of her 143 surviving paintings, 55 are self-portraits. Many of these speak of her physical and emotional suffering, the fragility of the human body, life and death.

Painted in 1940, this small but arresting painting shows Kahlo’s pain: her skin bleeds from the thorn necklace, her expression is solemn, the hummingbird is black and lifeless.

By employing symbolism and iconography from indigenous Mexican culture, Kahlo pioneered a new language of loss and pain and reframed self-portraiture for good.