Agnita M. Stine Schreiber Curator, Linda Johnson, Ph.D., July 10, 2025

In her short life, Frida Kahlo painted one hundred and forty-three paintings, of which fifty-five are self-portraits featuring many of her treasured pet companions.  Her menagerie who lived in her home, Casa Azul (Blue House) in Coyoacán, Mexico City, included monkeys, parrots, dogs, birds, cats, rabbits, and deer who adorned her paintings with rich symbol, metaphor, and unique expressions of her character. Eight of the fifty-five paintings feature spider monkeys. These animals were more than just companions. Monkeys in particular, became integral to Kahlo’s self-identity as symbols of pathos and joy. Kahlo built on a long tradition borrowed from medieval, Renaissance, and romantic artists (such as Francisco Goya), who had explored the language of love and loss, as well as horror and suffering through caricatures and metaphors, which embodied animals such as monkeys (fig. 1). While Kahlo derived concepts from an existing canon of visual language she expanded the representation of animals to make it her own. Conversely, she channeled her energy and emotion into her depiction of primates with an interiority of tenderness, comfort, and protection and portrayed them as rather soulful and insightful creatures.

Moreover, monkeys have historically been used from ancient to modern times as symbols of lust and mischievousness, and as demonic figures. Much scholarship has been devoted to interpreting monkeys as symbols of sexuality and thus they have been equated with Kahlo’s unconventional love affairs. Yet monkeys in both photographs and paintings of Kahlo embody a sense of domestic harmony and joy. Two of her pet primates were spider monkeys named Fulang Chang (a gift from her husband, Diego Rivera) and another, Caimito de Guayabal. In the first photograph Kahlo’s husband is captured smiling and embracing a monkey tightly to his upper torso. Next the couple’s relationship is made all the more impactful in an intimate and domestic family portrait doting on Fulang -Chang (fig. 2 & 3). While spider monkeys are typically not cared for by anyone else besides the mother, many photographs depict Kahlo’s husband in loving embraces with Fulang Chang’s tail looped about his shoulders, neck, and head. Similarly in the wild, a free roaming baby spider monkey will coil his or her prehensile tail around the mother’s tail as a safety net during movement. Emulating Rivera’s image, Kahlo portrays her monkeys’ long arms circling, enfolding, and grasping her body and her neck in a maternal rendering (fig. 4 & 5). These images create a Madonna and child cherished moment in which a union of animal and human physical bodies occur.

If not harbingers of sexuality, other Kahlo scholars have suggested that monkeys appearing in Kahlo’s photographs and compositions may be inferred as projections of her desire for fecundity. It is well known that Kahlo was never able to mother her own children due to the injuries she had suffered in a bus accident in 1925, that led to medical complications, two therapeutic abortions, and several miscarriages. In photographs as well as paintings several of Kahlo’s monkeys appear like children “swaddled” within Kahlo’s “rebozo,” (Mexican shawl) seemingly happy to be carried close to her breasts, and on her shoulders (fig.6 &7). Spider monkeys have long life spans, up to 30 years and many of their physical features and gestures mirror human behavior. They also have complex social structures and form hierarchies within family groups. Moreover, the intelligence of these New World primates has been unprecedented in anthropological circles likened to mother-child bonding as well as to problem solving.  

While spider monkeys were highly revered by the Aztecs as deities of fertility, it is also true that in Pre-Columbian lore they were also intimately connected with philosophy, and the arts. Kahlo’s patriotism was intellectually deep and thus her intimate bond with monkeys was made even more profound as spider monkeys have Mesoamerican roots originating in tropical forests from southern Mexico to Brazil. Both Kahlo and Rivera were infatuated with their culture and collected important artifacts from these early civilizations, becoming obsessive collectors of pre-Columbian artifacts, many of which are rich in primate symbology (fig.8). It follows that this passion extended to Kahlo’s collection of animal companions, many of which were representative of Aztec and Mayan cultures.

Because Kahlo’s public profile rested heavily on carefully created performances and dress, her self-identity was fashioned in photographic compositions. Like artists of all stripes, photographers work in concert with their subjects effectively elevating one’s persona and intimate moments by creating a scene for perpetuity. Whether some photographs of Frida Kahlo are staged or remain candid, many mirror the subject, composition, and dynamic narratives seen in her paintings.  While the veracity of photographic moments remains an arbitrary concern, they are indispensable in communicating time and place and in providing historical context and the documentation of ideas.

The black spider monkey in particular was a rarity, much like Kahlo’s ambitions and needs as a female artist which had very little precedent. In the same way, it cannot be overstated that spider monkeys have distinct requirements that must be met in order to thrive. Considered “frugivores” special diets are key and Kahlo is depicted in most photographs feeding her monkeys with fruits nuts, seeds, and leaves (fig.9 &10). Spider monkeys require large, naturalistic habitats with plenty of space to climb and swing, as well as access to a variety of enrichment activities and sensory engagement. Attempting to keep a spider monkey as a pet without providing all of these necessities can lead to serious physical and psychological problems for the animal. So too, Kahlo’s documented loneliness, constraints as a woman, and limited mobility frustrated her and exacerbated much physical pain. In Renaissance art, fettered monkeys were often used to symbolize men who were entrapped or bound by their desires. Literally and metaphorically “movement” remained a deep desire for Kahlo. Spiraling plant life becomes animated in her depictions of the lush Mexican landscape and her domestic tropical gardens where flora is illustrated as organic, alive, and freely flowing in the background of her paintings.

So too the height, stature, and sheer verticality of cacti notable in Kahlo’s photographs are compelling, as they “reach” for the sky unaided by the constant material and corseted support Kahlo’s spinal column required to be upright (fig.11).

Upon close reading however, it is ironic in diverse photographs, that one can see that Kahlo tethers her monkeys with reinforced chains about her waist in order to ground them in place, perhaps symbolic of her own captivity within a patriarchal culture. While Kahlo’s monkeys had agency to move through windows and doors into domestic garden spaces, their habitat and movements were restrained and prescribed much like Kahlo’s life. While, exploring the taxonomic description and natural behaviors of spider monkeys may be too broad for this discussion, free roaming spider monkeys, unlike their captive relatives live high in the canopy of the rainforest and seldom venture to the rainforest floor. Acrobatic and swift, spider monkeys move through the trees, with one arm stride covering up to 40 feet at a time.

Frida Kahlo’s Self-Portrait with Monkeys is a painting that primarily focuses on Kahlo herself. The four monkeys become parts of her alter ego, as surrogates for her need for autonomy, movement, playfulness, and protection in a pain free body (fig.12). The monkey she places in the foreground points to a symbol of “movement,” an emblem from an ancient Aztec hieroglyph enclosed in a red rectangle painted directly over her heart.  

Whether spider monkeys can be considered as symbols of sexuality, fertility, expressions of family structures or as icons of the ancient Pre-Columbian culture, for Kahlo they were most certainly emblems of agility and unlimited movement embodying freedom and joy.

 Conclusion

Despite popular interpretations that Kahlo’s portrayals of spider monkeys represented her physical and psychological wounds, photographic images like those in the museum’s current exhibition? support the notion that Kahlo painted spider monkeys with a delicate and childlike innocence embodying their intrinsic attributes rather than projections of human desire or morality. In noting both her powerful photographic images and vibrant painting compositions, Kahlo demonstrates her love for them in cuddling, holding, and bringing the monkeys inward in proximity to her bodily frame.

Kahlo’s art, life, and belief continued a long tradition in Central Meso American culture by depicting spider monkeys rich in mythology, symbol, and lore. Photographic compositions demonstrate her devotion and endearment to these lively and loving creatures who are ubiquitous in Classical Maya art. We can envision that Kahlo could have drawn inspiration from objects like the nineteenth-century ceramic monkey (Unknown artist, Figurine Monkey Carrying Cloth With Fruit,1850-75) notable in the museum’s collection. This charming monkey carries an ample white cloth filled with a veritable bounty of ripe fruit perhaps imaginatively gathered directly from the Mexican forests. (fig.13).