Which Frida Kahlo self-portrait from 1938 shows the artist surrounded by the images of water?

Frida Kahlo’s 1938 self-portrait showing the artist surrounded by images of water is What the Water Gave Me.

In the painting, Kahlo’s legs emerge from a bathtub while the water carries a shifting collection of images and symbols. These include plants, buildings, people, animals, wounds, and scenes that have been interpreted as references to memory, sexuality, death, childhood, and personal experience. Her face is not visible, making the feet and the water the main points of entry into the composition.

The work demonstrates Kahlo’s ability to turn a familiar domestic setting into a psychological landscape. It is often discussed as one of her most complex and surreal-looking paintings, although Kahlo resisted being defined simply as a Surrealist.

The title is sometimes shortened incorrectly to The Water, but What the Water Gave Me is the established English title. Kahlo painted it in 1938, during a significant period of growing international recognition.