Tunas (Still Life with Prickly Pear Fruit) - Frida Kahlo
Archival giclée
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Description
A 1937 still life by Frida Kahlo, depicting three prickly pear fruits on a plate against a draped blue cloth.
Frida Kahlo painted this still life in 1937, a period when she was exploring the symbolic potential of Mexican flora. The composition features three prickly pear fruits, known locally as tunas, resting upon a simple white plate with a green rim. The plate sits atop a blue cloth, which is draped in soft folds that provide a cool contrast to the warm, fleshy tones of the fruit.
One fruit is peeled, revealing its pale, textured interior, while the other two remain in their skins, displaying the deep, blood-red hue characteristic of the ripe cactus fruit. Kahlo applies the paint with a focus on the tactile qualities of the subjects, from the smooth, reflective surface of the plate to the porous, slightly rough skin of the tunas. The presence of red juice staining the plate adds a sense of immediacy to the scene, suggesting the fruit has been recently opened or sliced.
While still life painting was a traditional genre, Kahlo uses it here to examine themes of identity and the physical body. The visceral quality of the red fruit, combined with the starkness of the plate, invites a closer look at the organic forms she often incorporated into her larger, more complex works. The blue fabric, rendered with gentle shadows, anchors the objects, creating a sense of quietude that is often absent from her more turbulent self-portraits. This work demonstrates her ability to find visual interest in everyday objects, elevating them through precise observation and a deliberate, controlled application of colour. The painting remains a clear example of her technical skill and her interest in the natural world of Mexico, presented without the complex iconography found in her later, more surrealist compositions.
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Museum-grade giclée on FSC-certified archival matte paper, with framed and canvas options.
- Paper sizes: A4, A3, A2, A1, A0 and B2 (50×70 cm)
- Canvas: XS (20×30 cm) to Large (60×90 cm)
- Frames: black, natural wood, dark wood or white
Tunas (Still Life with Prickly Pear Fruit) - Frida Kahlo
Artist Biography
Frida Kahlo
She had already been ill. Polio at six left her right leg thinner than her left, a disproportion she hid with long skirts. The bus accident compounded everything. She would have thirty-five operations over her lifetime. Pain was the background condition of her work, though reducing her paintings to autobiography misses what she actually did with the medium.
She married Diego Rivera in 1929. He was twenty years older, already Mexico's most famous muralist, and physically twice her size. Her parents called the marriage a union between an elephant and a dove. They divorced in 1939, remarried in 1940, and continued a relationship that was mutually unfaithful, politically intense, and artistically competitive. Rivera said she was the better painter. He may have been right.
Her paintings are small. Most are self-portraits. They use the visual language of Mexican folk art, ex-votos, and Aztec mythology, combined with a physical directness that makes Surrealism look polite. Andre Breton called her a Surrealist. She disagreed: 'I paint my own reality.' She was right about that too.
She died in 1954 at forty-seven. Her diary entry for the last day reads 'I hope the leaving is joyful and I hope never to return.'
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