The big mural

This is part of Diego Rivera's mural at the National Palace, which is mentioned early in the book:

"They say he's making a huge painting on the stairwell of the National Palace, the long red building on the Zocalo with windows like holes in a flute" (p. 68).

I haven't (yet?) found a picture that shows what the boy Harrison Shepherd describes on the next page of the book (p. 69):

"A beautiful lady lifts her skirt, showing her tattooed ankle.  Maybe she is a puta, or a goddess.  Or just someone like Mother who needs an admirer.  The Painter makes you see that those three kinds of women might all be the same, because all the different ancestors are still inside us and don't really die."

Signing their marriage license in 1940

Photos help me visualize what the boy heard about the fat painter and his tiny wife.

"...her face was very startling, an Azteca queen with ferocious black eyes"
(p. 65).  "He was as fat as a giant and horribly ugly, with the face of a frog and the teeth of a Communist"
(p. 66).

Have you started reading the book yet?