At an early age, Paul Klee was already exceptional as both a violinist and a draftsman. These two interests—music and drawing—would inform Klee’s works throughout his influential career. His unique art was founded on the basic element of the line, which he infused with a lyrical quality from the first. In fact, he preferred a graphic medium and did not take up painting until a decade into his art-making. His fantastical images display a mixed sensibility of humor, spirituality, naiveté and overall mystery, and his portraits are no different. In this self-portrait, Klee employs his distinctive line. With it, the artist disregards spatial recession and depth completely, creating lines that cross and overlap to describe bodies, clothes, facial features and even undergarments.
Details
- Artist Name: Paul Klee (Swiss, 1879-1940)
- Title: First Drawing for "Specter of a Genius"
- Date: 1922
- Medium: Ink on laid paper mounted on thin cardboard
- Dimensions: sheet: 14-3/8 x 7-5/8 in. (36.5 x 19.4 cm); mount: 20-1/8 x 12-7/8 in. (51.1 x 32.7 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, The Blue Four Galka Scheyer Collection
- Accession Number: P.1953.023
- Copyright: © Norton Simon Museum
Object Information
Paul Klee 1879-1940: A Restrospective Exhibition [organized by The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Pasadena Art Museum]
- Pasadena, Pasadena Art Museum, 1967-02-21 to 1967-02-04
- San Francisco Museum of Art, 1967-04-13 to 1967-05-14
- Columbus Museum of Art, 1967-05-25 to 1967-06-25
- Cleveland Museum of Art, 1967-07-05 to 1967-08-13
- Kansas City, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, 1967-09-01 to 1967-09-30
- Baltimore Museum of Art, 1967-10-24 to 1967-11-19
- St. Louis, Washington University, Gallery of Art, 1967-12-03 to 1968-01-05
- Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1968-01-15 to 1968-02-15
Paul Klee Memorial Exhibition [organized by MOMA]
- San Francisco Museum of Art, 1941-04-14 to 1941-05-05
The Galka E. Scheyer Collection
- Mills College Art Gallery, 1961-01-10 to 1961-02-19
Paul Klee: An Exhibition from the Galka E. Scheyer Collection of the Pasadena Art Museum
- University of California, Berkeley Art Museum, 1962-05-03 to 1962-05-27
Paul Klee
- Norton Simon Museum, 1986-06-05 to 1987-06-28
50 years bauhaus
- Stuttgart, Wurttembergischer Kunstverein, 1968-05-05 to 1968-07-28
- Royal Academy of Arts (Great Britain), 1968-09-19 to 1968-10-27
- Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 1968-11-30 to 1969-01-01
- Paris, Musee National d'Art Moderne, 1969-04-01 to 1969-06-22
- Illinois Institute of Technology, 1969-08-25 to 1969-09-26
- Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario, 1969-12-05 to 1970-02-01
- Pasadena Art Museum, 1970-03-16 to 1970-04-26
- Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, 1970 to 1971
- Tokyo, National Museum of Modern Art, 1971 to 1971
The Art of Paul Klee
- Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1960-04-12 to 1960-05-08
Paul Klee: Fifty Paintings, Drawings and Prints from the Galka E. Scheyer Collection
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1959-10-24 to 1959-12-06
- Minneapolis, University of Minnesota, University Gallery, 1960-01-04 to 1960-02-08
- Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, 1960-03 to 1960-04
Gaze: Portraiture After Ingres
- Norton Simon Museum, 2009-10-30 to 2010-04-05
Permanent and Loan Collection, 1973
- Pasadena Museum of Modern Art, 1973-01-30 to 1973-12-31
- Paul Klee, p. 24
- Paul Klee, p. 31
- Grohmann, Will, Paul Klee: Handzeichnungen 1921-1930, 1934, p. 19
- Grohmann, Will, Paul Klee (1879-1940), 1956, pl. 4
- Klee, Felix, Paul Klee: Leben und Werk in Documenten, 1960, p. 77
- Huggler, Max, Paul Klee: Die Malerei als Blick in den Kosmos, 1969, p. 11
- The Blue Four Galka Scheyer Collection, Norton Simon Museum of Art at Pasadena, 1976, no. 298 p. 124
- Pierce, James Smith, Paul Klee and Primitive Art, 1976, pp. 25, 126
- Burnett, David R., Art International, 1977, pp. 15-17
- Rosenthal, Mark, Paul Klee and the Arrow, 1979, fig. 52 pp. 66, 254
- Vishny, Michele, Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Art, 1985, p. 151
- Paul Klee Catalogue Raisonné, Volume 3, 1919-1922, 1999, no. 3017
- Barnett, Vivian Endicott, The Blue Four Collection at the Norton Simon Museum, 2002, no. 326 p. 306
- Grohmann, Will, Paul Klee, 2003, p. 63
Additional Artwork by Artist
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