Although Muray was still troubled by the state of their relationship, by her jealousy over his flirtations with other women, and by Diego’s constant presence as a looming shadow in Frida’s life, a part of him continued to hope for a future with Kahlo. For this reason, convinced that geographical proximity could also bring them together romantically, he decided to build a house in Mexico.
Arija, Muray’s now teenage daughter, was studying to become an artist and after attending several ateliers in France, she asked her father to travel to Mexico to visit Frida and Diego in their studio. However, due to the assassination of Trotsky, of which Rivera was a suspect, their trip was cancelled and Nick went alone to visit Frida in 1940, who was meanwhile hospitalised for over three months. On his arrival, however, Mury realised that there was no hope for his story: the only thing Kahlo wanted from his bed was to reach Diego again, who had meanwhile taken refuge in San Francisco. In December of that year Kahlo and Rivera remarried.
Arija and Nick finally left for Mexico to meet Frida together in August 1941. On that occasion Nick took many photos of the Riveras together in the house in San Angel, of Frida in her rooms and of Frida together with Arija, the two barely tilted heads touching affectionately. As if to close the circle of their relationship, Muray also took a self-portrait in Kahlo’s studio, and in a single image managed to perfectly convey the complexity of their love. The two did not know it yet, but that would be the last time they would meet in the privacy of Frida’s home.
Not even a month after that trip to Mexico, Arija Muray, just 19 years old, died in New York Hospital of a fever contracted during her stay in South America. Desperate Nick wrote to Frida to request that she take a portrait of his daughter dressed in a typical Mexican dress. Frida agreed but never completed the painting. Muray, by now heartbroken over the end of a love he had never seen reciprocated and devastated by the loss of his daughter, threw himself headlong into his work.
In 1942 Muray decided to remarry and in 1943 his second daughter, Michael, called Mimi, was born, named after Miguel Covarrubias. Nick and Frida meet again in 1946 in New York, when she comes to the United States to undergo a spinal fusion. On that occasion Nick photographed her on the roof of her flat, together with her sister Cristina, with the city’s skyscrapers as a backdrop.
Muray and his new family continued to travel to Mexico in the following years and on a few occasions Nick met Frida. The last time was in 1951: Frida, as if to say goodbye to him one last time, gave him a small still life depicting a slice of melon and a parrot – a photograph of which can be seen in the next room – taken from the collection of the Mexican National Art Gallery especially for him.