Walter Rathenau

Munch painted this in Berlin in 1907. Walther Rathenau was 40, the son of the man who founded AEG, the electrical combine then wiring Germany's cities, and he was running much of it himself. The canvas is two metres tall, the figure planted in the middle of it, with his own shadow thrown up the wall behind him. Rathenau's reported response was that the man in it is a disgusting fellow, and that this is what comes of letting a great artist paint you: you end up more like yourself than you are. Munch usually made two versions of a commissioned portrait and let the sitter choose one. The other showed at the Berlin Secession in 1908. In 1922, as foreign minister, Rathenau was shot in his car by nationalist gunmen.