In 1958, a young Bob Thompson (1937–1966) committed to canvas a moment from a recent funeral service he had not attended. The work paid tribute to German émigré Jan Müller, who had passed away just before Thompson encountered his enigmatic paintings of rough-hewn figures during a stay in Provincetown, Massachusetts, the summer of that year. The Funeral of Jan Müller, 1958, lacks the vivid palette the artist would go on to develop, but the somber cemetery scene rendered with thick brushstrokes in earnest homage to Müller affords insight into Thompson’s brewing sense of figuration’s expressive