JACK TEEHAN | DATE 3/21/2026

The fearless self-portraiture of Frida Kahlo, timed for MoMA's Kahlo / Rivera show

My Grandparents, My Parents, and I (1936) illustrates the transnational roots of Frida Kahlo’s family tree. Kahlo’s maternal grandparents, of mixed Indigenous and Spanish descent, are projected above the Mexican mountain ranges while her German paternal grandparents float over the Atlantic Ocean. Kahlo painted this work a year after Nazi Germany enforced the Nuremberg Race Laws—in effect stripping German Jews of their civil rights and prohibiting interracial marriage—falsely substantiated by a genealogical chart that determined who was Jewish according to bloodlines. Kahlo’s interpretation of a family tree is a counter to such violent, supremacist ideas. Today, as we see families ripped apart due to their national origin, Kahlo’s work takes on a profound new dimension as a denunciation of state violence and imposed borders. My Grandparents, My Parents, and I is reproduced from Frida Kahlo: Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair, forthcoming from the Museum of Modern Art, New York, to accompany Frida and Diego: The Last Dream, on view at MoMA through September 12, 2026. This expanded hardcover edition of the MoMA classic includes additional illustrations and photographs, and features a die-cut front cover.