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United Colors of Benetton reveals that, for its new advertising campaign, it will use a photograph of dying, 32-year-old AIDS activist David Kirby being comforted by his family as he lies on his deathbed. The photograph was taken by a journalism grad student named Therese Frare, and was originally published in LIFE magazine in November, 1990.

David Kirby was an AIDS activist born and raised in a small town in Ohio. When he learned in the late 1980s that he had contracted HIV, he was living in California and estranged from his family. He got in touch with his parents and asked if he could come home; he wanted, he said, to die with his family around him. The Kirbys welcomed their son back.

David Kirby's mother, Kay, holds a photograph of her son -- taken by Ohio photographer Art Smith -- before AIDS took its toll. "We never had any reservations about allowing Benetton to use Therese's photograph in that ad," Kay Kirby told LIFE. "What I objected to was everybody who put their two cents in about how outrageous they thought it was, when nobody knew anything about us, or about David. My son more or less starved to death at the end," says Kirby, describing a terrible symptom of the disease. "We just felt it was time that people saw the truth about AIDS," Kay Kirby remembers, "and if Benetton could help, then fine. That ad was the last chance for people to see David -- a marker to show that he was once here, among us."

A nurse at Pater Noster House holds David Kirby's hands not long before he died. While Therese Frare's photograph of David's family comforting him in the hour of his death earned accolades when published in LIFE, it became notorious two years later when Benetton used a colorized version of the photo in a provocative ad campaign. Individuals and groups ranging from Roman Catholics (who felt the picture mocked classical imagery of Mary cradling Christ after his crucifixion) to AIDS activists (furious at what they saw as corporate exploitation of death in order to sell T-shirts) voiced outrage. England's high-profile AIDS charity, the Terrence Higgins Trust, called for a ban of the ad, labeling it offensive and unethical, while powerhouse fashion magazines like Elle, Vogue, and Marie Claire refused to run it. Calling for a boycott of Benetton, meanwhile, London's Sunday Times argued that "the only way to stop this madness is to vote with our cash."

"I started grad school at Ohio University in Athens in January, 1990," recalls Frare, now a professional photographer in Seattle. "Right away, I began volunteering at the Pater Noster House, an AIDS hospice in Columbus, maybe 50 miles from Athens. In March, I started taking photos there for a school project, and got to know the staff and amazing people like Peta (above), who was volunteering and caring for David." While Frare's famous picture of David on his deathbed garnered acclaim -- including a World Press Photo Award in 1991 -- Kirby passed away in April, 1990, at the age of 32, not long after Frare began shooting at the hospice. She spent much more time, it turns out, with Peta, who himself was HIV-positive while caring for David. Frare photographed Peta over the course of two years, until he, too, died of AIDS, in the fall of 1992.

In another of Frare's photos taken in the final moments of David Kirby's life, Peta, David's father, and David's sister, Susan, say goodbye. "Early on," Frare says of her time at Pater Noster House, "I asked David if he minded me taking pictures, and he said, 'That's fine, as long as it's not for personal profit.' To this day I don't take any money for the picture. But David was an activist, and he wanted to get the word out there about how devastating AIDS was to families and communities. Honestly, I think he was a lot more in tune with how important the photos might become." Frare pauses, and laughs. "At the time, I was like, 'Yeah, who's going to see these pictures, anyway?'" Over the past 20 years, by some estimates, as many as 1 billion people have seen the Frare photograph that appeared in LIFE, in the Benetton ad, and in the hundreds of newspaper, magazine, and TV stories -- from all over the world -- focusing on the photo itself and the controversies that later surrounded it.

Bill Kirby tries to comfort his dying son, David. "On the day that David died," Therese Frare told LIFE, "I happened to be visiting Peta. It was in the morning and they came in to get Peta so he could be with David, and he took me with him. I stayed outside David's room, minding my own business, when David's mom, Kay, came out and said, 'We'd like you to photograph people saying their final goodbyes to David.' I went in, and just stood in the corner of that room, quiet, barely moving, and it all happened as I watched and photographed it. After that, I did realize that, yes, something truly incredible had unfolded, right in front of me."

"Peta was an extraordinary person," Frare says. Twenty years on, the affection in her voice is palpable. "He was dealing with all sorts of dualities in his life -- he was half-Native American and half-White, a caregiver and a client at Pater Noster, a person who rode the line between genders, all of that -- but he was also very, very strong."

Peta lies on a couch in a home rented by the Pater Noster hospice. After the infamous ad ran, Benetton donated money to Pater Noster, some of which was used to furnish the house where Peta and other patients stayed.

The former Jacqueline Bouvier fixes her veil at the reception of her wedding to U.S. Sen. John F. Kennedy on Sept. 12, 1953, at Hammersmith Farm in Newport, R.I.

He was born Patrick Church, but "Peta" was the name he embraced. Above: Peta swims in a lake on the Pine Ridge (Lakota) Indian Reservation in South Dakota, during a trip home with photographer Therese Frare in July, 1991.

As Peta's health deteriorated in early 1992 -- as his HIV-positive status transitioned to AIDS -- the Kirbys began to care for him, in much the same way that Peta had cared for their son in the final months of his life. Peta had comforted David; spoken to him; held him; tried to relieve his pain and loneliness through simple human contact -- and the Kirbys resolved to do the same for Peta, to be there for him as his strength and his vitality faded. Kay Kirby tells LIFE: "I made up my mind when David was dying and Peta was helping to care for him, that when Peta's time came -- and we all knew it would come -- that we would care for him. There was never any question. We were going to take care of Peta. That was that." Pictured: Kay and Bill Kirby with Peta in Columbus.

"For a while there, I took care of Peta as often as I could," Kay Kirby says. "It was hard, because we couldn't afford to be there all the time. But Bill would come in on weekends and we did the best we could in the short time we had." Above: Kay administers medicine via an IV, while Peta lies in bed beneath a dreamcatcher -- an Ojibwe (Chippewa) totem or charm, adopted by other tribes over the years as an emblem of Native American solidarity.

Peta and Bill Kirby share a quiet moment together in Peta's room at a hospice-type home run by Pater Noster House. Bill and Kay Kirby were, in effect, the house parents for the home. "My husband and I were hurt by the way David was treated in the small country hospital near our home," Kay Kirby says. "Doctors and nurses wore gloves and gowns whenever they were around him, and even the person who handed out menus refused to let David hold one. She would read out the meals to him from the doorway. We told ourselves that we would help other people with AIDS avoid all that, and we tried to make sure that Peta never went through it."

After the Benetton controversy finally subsided, Therese Frare went on to other work, other photography, freelancing from Seattle for the New York Times, major magazines, and other outlets. While the world has become more familiar with HIV and AIDS, many feel that Frare's photograph went a long way toward dispelling some of the fear and willful ignorance that had accompanied any mention of the disease. Barb Cordle, the volunteer director at Pater Noster when David Kirby was there, once said that Frare's photo of David "has done more to soften people's hearts on the AIDS issue than any other I have ever seen. You can't look at that picture and hate a person with AIDS. You just can't." Therese Frare has moved on, but she has not left that time behind. Not entirely. "Peta could be a handful at times," Therese recalls, "but there was also a great deal of joy in my relationship with him. He wasn't like anyone I'd ever met. He was one of a kind." Above: Peta, photographed by Therese Frare on the Pine Ridge (Lakota) Indian Reservation in South Dakota, July, 1991. Learn more about Therese Frare's photography at fraredavis.com.

"I had worked for newspapers for about 12 years already when I went to grad school," Therese Frare says, "and was very interested in covering AIDS by the time I got to Columbus. Of course, it was difficult to find a community of people with HIV and AIDS willing to be photographed back then, but when I was given the okay to take pictures at Pater Noster I knew I was doing something that was important -- important to me, at least. I honestly never believed that it would lead to being published in LIFE, or winning awards, or being involved in anything controversial -- certainly nothing as epic as the Benetton controversy. In the end, the picture of David became the one image that was seen around the world, but there was so much more that I had tried to document with Peta, and the Kirbys, and the other people at Pater Noster. And all of that sort of got lost, and forgotten."

Kay Kirby describes Peta, as his condition worsened in late 1991 and 1992, as a "very difficult patient. He was very clear and vocal about what he wanted, and when he wanted it. But during all the time we cared for him, I can only recall once when he yelled at me. I yelled right back at him -- he knew I was not going to let him get away with that sort of behavior -- and we went on from there."

"You know, at the time the Benetton ad was running, and the controversy over their use of my picture of David was really raging, I was falling apart," Frare now admits. "I was falling to pieces. But Bill Kirby told me something I never forgot. He said, 'Listen, Therese. Benetton didn't use us, or exploit us. We used them. Because of them, your photo was seen all over the world, and that's exactly what David wanted.' And I just held on to that." Above: Bill and Kay Kirby, 1992.

LONDON - NOVEMBER 29: A duplicate ivory silk taffeta dress with train by David Elizabeth Emmanuel is displayed at the Proud Galleries on November 29, 2005 in London, England. The Dress was worn by Lady Diana Spencer during fittings for her actual wedding dress. The dress is to be auctioned on Wednesday December 7, 2005 and is estimated at GBP GBP50,000. (Photo by Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)

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