Beauford's "Fontana"

In the posting entitled Burt and Pat Reinfrank Remember Beauford, I mentioned that Burt relayed an anecdote to me about a painting that Beauford created in the style of the slash series of artist Lucio Fontana. Here is an image of the painting:

Untitled
(ca. 1960-61) Gouache on paper
Photo courtesy of Burt and Pat Reinfrank

and here is the story:

Beauford often brought gifts when he was invited to people's homes. He gave the painting shown above to James and Gloria Jones at Christmas in 1960 or 1961. It is inscribed as a gift to "Jimmy and Gloria Jones." (James Jones was one of four independent collectors of Beauford's works in Paris — the others were Ahmed Bioud, Solange du Closel, and the Reinfranks.)

After Jones' death, Gloria Jones gave most of the Jones' collection to Darthea Speyer to sell.

Years later, the gouache shown above was put up for sale on Ebay. Burt saw the black strokes in the painting that mimic the cuts in Lucio Fontana's works and remembered that he and Beauford had discussed Fontana's "slash style" at around the time that the painting is dated. He believes that Beauford created this untitled work soon after that conversation.

The painting did not sell on Ebay and Burt was able to obtain it offline from the person who put the work up for sale.