Self-Portrait on the Border Line Between Mexico and the United States

Self-Portrait on the Border Line Between Mexico and the United States is an oil-on-metal painting by Frida Kahlo, made in Detroit in 1932; it belongs to a private collection associated with María and Manuel Reyero in New York. Kahlo and Diego Rivera were then living in Detroit while he painted the Detroit Industry murals at the Detroit Institute of Arts, a project funded by Edsel Ford, and a Ford Motor Company photograph dated 2 August 1932 shows Kahlo at work on this very panel.

Standing on a small pedestal, Kahlo divides the picture into two invented landscapes. To her left is Mexico: sun and moon sharing a cloudy sky, lightning, a ruined stepped temple, pre-Hispanic figurines and a fallen carved head, and flowering plants whose roots burrow into exposed earth. To her right is the United States: four smokestacks spelling FORD above a red-brick factory, geometric skyscrapers, a cloud of smoke in the colours of the American flag, and grey machines joined by black cables. Roots and cables both converge toward the pedestal beneath her feet.

Kahlo wears a pink ruffled dress with lace gloves and necklaces, a small Mexican flag on a staff in one hand and a cigarette in the other. The pedestal is inscribed 'Carmen Rivera ... 1932', joining one of her given names to her married surname. The painting is usually read as a statement about her position between an agrarian, ancient Mexico and the industrial United States, though scholars have noted that her own costume and props make the line a place of mixture rather than a simple choice between two nations.