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Course: Modernisms 1900-1980 > Unit 7
Lesson 3: Surrealism in Latin America- Frida Kahlo, introduction
- Frida Kahlo, Frieda and Diego Rivera
- Kahlo, The Two Fridas (Las dos Fridas)
- Kahlo, The Two Fridas
- Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait with Monkey
- Rosa Rolanda, Self-Portrait
- Wifredo Lam, The Eternal Presence
- Lam, The Jungle
- Lam, The Jungle
- Hector Hyppolite, Ogou Feray also known as Ogoun Ferraille
- Latin American Modernism
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Rosa Rolanda, Self-Portrait
Rosa Rolanda's self-portrait captures her Mexican heritage and personal battles. The double-headed snake and broken column symbolize her emotional turmoil, while her use of vivid colors and patterns reflects Mexican folk art's influence. This artwork tells a profound story of identity and struggle. Created by Smarthistory.
Video transcript
(jazzy piano music) - [Lauren] We're at Crystal
Bridges Museum of American Art, and we're standing in front of Rosa Rolanda's "Self-Portrait" from 1939. This portrait allows us to talk about transnational identities. She's born in California, but she travels around the world and eventually settles in Mexico. - [Jen] Rolanda was an artist of both Mexican and Scottish descent. And for her, self-portraiture and creative work was an important part
of her self-exploration. She's tightly cropped this painting to focus on her face, and then sets her figure against this bright blue background so that it pops out. And then further in the background, this ambiguous, fascinating landscape. - [Lauren] We're seeing
her from the shoulders up. She's looking off to the side. Her eyes are sizable, and she has this hairstyle
fashioned from the 1930s that's set up with two white flowers. And then there is this
swallowtail butterfly at the nape of her neck. And Rolanda is a self-taught artist. Before she became a painter, she was experimenting with
different types of photography. And this self-portrait reminds me of some of the photograms that she creates earlier in her life. - [Jen] She began her career as a dancer, and moved to New York after
she graduated high school to perform on Broadway. That career in dance meant
that she traveled broadly. Her interest in traveling
continued through her life. - [Lauren] While she's in New York, she marries the caricaturist,
artist, anthropologist, Miguel Covarrubias. The two of them relocate to Mexico City, and they're there with some of the most
well-known Mexican modernists of the time. They're in the same circle as
Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, who was a close friend. They're traveling around Mexico, taking photographs with Edward
Weston and Tina Modotti. So, they were in this avant-garde crowd who were experimenting with different types of
styles and techniques, including surrealism. - [Jen] Surrealism allows
for a means of artists to explore subjective experience, and to be able to reimagine
their own identities. - [Lauren] In 1939,
Mexico City is this center of artistic production and experimental techniques. And here we have Rolanda
crafting a portrait of herself that is rooted in Mexican
identity of the time. If we look at the landscape, we see a snow-capped
volcano in the background, and then closer to the curve of her neck, we see a flat-capped volcano. And these are the famed Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl volcanoes that surround the Valley of Mexico. Artists of the time, like Dr. Atl, Luis Nishizawa, and even painters earlier
in the 19th century are showing the volcanoes as an icon of mexicalidad, of Mexican identity. - [Jen] For Rolanda, that exploration of Mexican identity was so crucial to her own self-invention. - [Lauren] The butterfly going
through this metamorphosis makes me think of her
identity as an artist who is attempting to
figure out who she is. - [Jen] That butterfly is unexpected, and that seems like a
subtle hint to surrealism, that sense in which things
that might be familiar to us can become strange through something like the placement. - [Lauren] She almost becomes
part of the landscape. Notice how the volcano next to her neck has the same swoop. And even the way that
her hair is fashioned seems to mimic the
fantastical landscape elements in the scene. Because while we have volcanoes that are identifiable in Mexico City, this is not what the landscape of the Valley of Mexico looks like. - [Jen] The importance of self-portraiture within the circle of
Mexican artists at this time is probably best known through
the work of Frida Kahlo, who's become so beloved and acclaimed for her self-portraits. But Kahlo was part of this
larger circle of individuals, including Rolanda, who used self-portraiture
for their own artistic aims. - [Lauren] This rich moment
in the city's history where especially female artists who were associated with surrealism were finding that they
could express themselves in ways that maybe they
weren't able to before. Rosa Rolanda has largely been overlooked in scholarship, in exhibitions, and I think it's high time that we get to know more about her. (jazzy piano music)