Paul Klee

Neue Kunst Hans Goltz, Munich (acquired directly from the artist by 1920)
Hans Koch, Dusseldorf (acquired circa 1921)
Thence by descent and sold: Stuttgarter Kunstkabinet, Stuttgart, May 19, 1954, lot 1230
Berggruen & Cie, Paris (acquired at the above sale and sold: Stuttgarter Kunstkabinet, Stuttgart, November 30, 1955, lot 1384)
Max Fischer, Stuttgart (acquired at the above sale)
Galerie Wolfgang Ketterer, Stuttgart (acquired from the above in 1963)
Private Collection, Germany (acquired before 1966)
Galerie Beyeler, Basel (acquired in 1966)
Private Collection, Italy (acquired from the above in 1966)
Agenzia d'arte moderna Paolo Sprovieri, Rome (acquired by circa 1975)
Galeria Alfred Schmela, Dusseldorf (acquired circa 1975)
Private Collection, Germany (acquired circa 1975 and until 2007)
Galerie Ulrike Schmela, Berlin
Private Collection, Germany (acquired from the above)

Hannover, Kestner-Gesellschaft, Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger: Gemälde, Graphik, XXIX, Sonder-Ausstellung, 1919-20, no. 6
Dusseldorf, Galerie Alfred Flechtheim, In Memorium Lehmbruck, Paul Klee, Walter Tanck, 1920, no. 20
Paris, Berggruen & Cie, L'Univers de Klee, 1955
Berlin, Neue Nationalgalerie, Das Universum, 2008-09, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Marcel Brion, Paul Klee, Paris, 1955, illustrated p. 14
Lagerkatalog 29 (exhibition catalogue), Galerie Wolfgang Ketterer, Stuttgart, 1963, illustrated pl. 5
Lagerkatalog 30 (exhibition catalogue), Galerie Wolfgang Ketterer, Stuttgart, 1964, illustrated pl. 5
Paul Klee Foundation, ed., Paul Klee, Catalogue Raisonné, 1919 - 1922, vol. III, Bern, 1999, no. 2164, illustrated p. 93

Oil on cream wove paper laid down on canvas. There is a layer of varnish preventing the UV light from fully penetrating, however UV examination reveals no traces of retouching. Three fly spots in places to the mouth of the female figure. There is an artist's pinhole to the left and right upper corners, and one to the lower right corner. Some lovely impasto. This work is in overall good condition.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

In late November 1906, Klee and his wife Lili moved from Bern to Munich where Klee hoped to find an artistic foothold. Momentum was slow in building, and Klee was initially only supported by friends and a single wealthy patron, the industrialist and art collector Bernhard Koeler. 

In 1911, friend and editor Hans Bloesch of Die Alpen, a Swiss cultural monthly, wrote of Klee’s work: “[There] has always been a cautious silence on the part of the critics and helpless mystification on the part of the public, which after the initial shock, in its hunger for making aesthetic judgements, has turned either scornfully or dismissively towards more familiar grazing sports… What Paul Klee is striving to do is express in art his own subjective way of seeing; his is an honest search for the appropriate means for such seeing and feeling” (quoted in Josef Helfernstein & Elizabeth Hutton Turner, Klee and America, New York, 2006, p. 19).

The present work was first introduced to the public at the Munich gallery Neue Kunst, led by Hans Goltz. While focus had largely shifted to the Impressionist aesthetic, in his more than one hundred and sixty exhibitions in Munich, Hans Goltz succeeded in representing more modern avant-garde artists. In October 1919, Klee signed an exclusive contract with Goltz which helped to propel his career. It is likely here, in his second group show, that American collector Arthur Jerome Eddy first encountered Klee’s work. Already an avid collector of Kandinsky, he agreed to represent the artist in New York, though with the advent of the WWI, relations between Germany and the United States were temporarily severed.

Klee was drafted into the German army on March 11, 1916, and the present work reflects the artist's frustrated response to the horrors of war. In a diary entry from 1915, likely revised in 1921, Klee wrote: “One deserts the realm of the here and now to transfer one’s activity into a realm of the yonder where total affirmation is possible. Abstraction. The cool Romanticism of this style without pathos is unheard of. The more horrible this world (as today, for instance), the more abstract our art, whereas a happy world brings forth an art of the here and now” (quoted in Christine Hopfengart & Michael Baumgartner, Paul Klee, Life and Work, Bern, 2012, p. 108).