The story behind this work by Max Beckmann fascinated me. A group of Mies van der Rohe's friends and colleagues got together in 1934 to give this lush, seductive painting to Mies for his birthday in 1936 because, allegedly, it was too expensive for him to buy. Beckman chose the work and reduced the price. Mies hung it in his Berlin apartment in plain sight but when he moved to the US, he kept it in bedroom for fear of the puritanical American sensibility. Mies, nevertheless, was already known as something of a ladies man.

A few years after this, Beckmann himself fled to Amsterdam after his work was shown in the Nazi's 'degenerate art' show.

In 1944, Beckmann would paint Mies in a double portrait. A year after that, Mies began his infamous quasi-professional, quasi -personal, eventually combustible liaison with his Chicago client Edith Farnsworth. A few years later, Beckmann had also moved to the US and was teaching in Saint Louis after Philip Guston, who was an admirer of Beckmann's, had taken a leave from his post.

On his way to see one of his paintings at the Met, Beckmann died on the corner of 69th and Central Park West of a heart attack in New York. Mies died from smoking too much. Guston also died of a heart attack, probably not helped from smoking too much.

So many connections, and missed connections, and alas cigarettes, among the great artists of the 20th century.

Max Beckmann, Figure with Mask, 1934, collection Guggenheim Museum, partial gift Georgia van der Rohe.