Portrait of Adriana (1927)

Portrait of Adriana (1927) Painting, Oil on canvas 105,9 x 73,9 cm.41 ½" x 29" Photograph by Frida's Father, Guillermo

Whereabouts Unknown

When Frida first began painting, she painted portraits, mostly of close friends and members of her immediate family. This highly stylized portrait of her older sister Adriana is painted in the style of a 16th century Italian Renaissance portrait, similar to the style use by Bronzino and Botticelli, two artists that Frida greatly admired. Adriana was the first of Frida's immediate family to be put on canvas. The following year she painted a portrait of her sister Cristina and several years later one of her father. Only photographs of this portrait of Adriana remain….the whereabouts of the original painting are unknown. During this same period Frida painted three other portraits that are now missing. One of them, "Jesus Rios and Valle" she later burned because she said it disgusted her. Perhaps the other three suffered the same firey fate.