"Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair" by Frida Kahlo, 1940 | MoMA Education

- My name is Jackie Delamatre.

I'm a School Programs Educator

here at the Museum of Modern Art.

And this piece is by Frida Kahlo.

It's called Self-Portrait
with Cropped Hair.

I really like to teach
from this object because

to me, the conversations
here really unfold

like a story, a series of observations

that lead into further interpretations

until at the end, we're
delving into this whole area of

feminism, what is beauty,

of a question of a woman's
place in the world.

What usually happens is they're noticing

who is this person.

They're starting to
think about the clothing.

They're thinking about the hair.

They're thinking about
the facial structure.

They're thinking about
the earring they can see.

And their main questions
to themselves are,

"Is this a woman or is this a man?"

And then we start to see and
notice the hair on the ground.

And then they start to see
the scissors and they say,

"Actually, maybe this is a
woman who cut-off her hair."

But not only is it a woman
who cut-off her hair,

it's a woman who's wearing a suit,

so then it brings up another question:

"Why is she wanting to look like a man?"

That's usually how they phrase it.

Then, what it comes to is the top.

There are musical notes there

and they're in Spanish.

And it says, "Look,

"if I loved you, it was
because of your hair.

"But now that you are without hair,

"I don't love you anymore."

One reason that I think this
piece is really relevant,

really exciting to students,

is the fact that this is something that

they're dealing with in their
social lives all the time.

People are not necessarily
just going to like them

for what's on the inside and
feeling the unfairness of that,

the injustice of it.

So, in this case, not
only the injustice of

somebody having said, "I only
loved you for your hair,"

but also the injustice of

what it was like to be a
woman artist at that time,

to be married to somebody who had

so much fame and so much
success as a male artist,

and really having to wait posthumously

to get the fame and the
love and the respect

that Frida Kahlo now has
and I think really deserves.