The last painting Frida painted in her life was watermelons, and at the end of his life, Diego also painted watermelons. I always thought that was beautiful: this green fruit that opens up, the pulp, the flesh, the blood, these black seeds.
Over at the Smithsonian, Patti Smith reads a letter from Frida Kahlo to Diego Rivera and is reminded of her own relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe—and how she first conceived of love at sixteen.