Beauford and John-Franklin Koenig

John-Franklin Koenig was an American painter who served in the Second World War and moved to Paris in 1948 to study under the GI Bill. In 1950, he and Frenchman Jean-Robert Arnaud opened the Galerie Arnaud in the basement of Arnaud's bookstore at 34, rue du Four, and in 1953, the two men launched the contemporary art publication called Cimaise.

Beauford's biographer, David A. Leeming, mentions Koenig only twice in Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney. He lists Koenig among the friends Beauford made in the American artist community when he moved to Paris in 1953, and he talks about a 1956 art exhibition at Galerie Arnaud where Beauford exhibited works alongside fellow abstract American artists Sam Francis, Shirley Goldfarb, Joe Downing, Shirley Jaffe, Paul Jenkins, and others.

Several years after the art exhibition, Beauford created this portrait of Koenig.

Portrait of John Koenig
(1968) Oil on canvas
Signed and dated 1968; signed again,
titled and dated again 1968 on the reverse;
titled again on the stretcher
25 1/2 by 21 1/4 in.
64.8 by 54 cm.
© Estate of Beauford Delaney,
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

I have not been able to find out how Beauford and Koenig met and do not know how often they saw each other over the years. 

An interesting passage in "L'anachronique du flâneur N° 12," which contains commentary on the 2016 Resonance of Form and Vibration of Color exhibition, writer Marc Albert-Levin lets us know that Beauford and Koenig lunched together in 1967:

That same year, in 1967, we had lunch with [jazz saxophonist] Marion Brown and Beauford Delaney, at John Koenig's apartment .... I would lie if I said that I remember what we talked about with Beauford that day. I just remember some harmonious time spent together by the four people present--Beauford, John, Marion and I--all happy to share a good bottle and a good meal, amid Koenig's paintings and collages, in his small attic apartment.

I imagine that Beauford must have appreciated Koenig since he took the time to create a portrait of him. The painting, which presents a good likeness of Koenig, was auctioned by Sotheby's during its March 9, 2011 Contemporary Art sale and purchased for $7,500.