Double Portrait

These two men never sat side by side. Curt Valentin, a German-born dealer who had opened a gallery in New York in 1937, came to see Beckmann in Amsterdam in July 1946, after the long break of the war. Hanns Swarzenski, a historian of medieval art, came on his own in early September and sat for sketches at the seaside in Noordwijk. He was the son of Georg Swarzenski, the Frankfurt museum director under whom the Städel bought 13 of Beckmann's paintings between 1919 and 1933. On 9 October Beckmann decided to put both friends into one picture, and his diary marks it finished on 5 December. Valentin, at the left, holds up a burning candle. X-rays taken in Munich in 1969 found a hand that had been painted out, and suggest that Valentin first faced straight out at us. Beckmann wrote the dedication at the lower right, für Kurt Valentin, with an A for Amsterdam and the year 46. When Valentin died in 1954 the canvas passed to Swarzenski, by then working at the Museum of Fine Arts, and in 1989 it came to the museum through his estate.