Per-haps you’ve lis-tened to Pat-ti Smith’s albums. Per-haps you’ve also seen Robert Map-plethor-pe’s pho-tog-ra-phy. If you keep up with mem-oirs, you’ll sure-ly know that Smith’s Just Kids, a remem-brance of her time with Map-plethor-pe in the late six-ties, won all man-ner of acclaim, includ-ing the Nation-al Book Award, when it came out in 2010. But you might still have no idea of the close-ness and impor-tance of each artist to the oth-er, as many of their fans did-n’t before read-ing Smith’s book. While those 278 pages will tell you every-thing you need to know about it, the 178 words of Smith’s let-ter to the dying Map-plethor-pe fea-tured last week on Let-ters of Note say near-ly as much.

But don’t take it from me; in the video above, you can hear the let-ter as read by Smith her-self. She brought it out, appro-pri-ate-ly enough, at the open-ing of her exhi-bi-tion, Cam-era Solo, at Hartford’s Wadsworth Atheneum Muse-um of Art, the first show of her own ven-tures into Mapplethorpe’s craft. Alas, Map-plethor-pe did-n’t live long enough to get around to try-ing his hand at rock music — he did-n’t even live long enough to actu-al-ly read this let-ter — but his artis-tic sen-si-bil-i-ty per-sists in Smith’s own work. “I learned to see through you,” she reads, “and nev-er com-pose a line or draw a curve that does not come from the knowl-edge I derived in our pre-cious time togeth-er.”

Relat-ed con-tent:

Pat-ti Smith Remem-bers Robert Map-plethor-pe

Col-in Mar-shall hosts and pro-duces Note-book on Cities and Cul-ture. Fol-low him on Twit-ter at @colinmarshall.