Klee had a great fondness for cats. He had many cats for pets, and made them subjects in his pictures. Klee's wit is evident in both the subject and the technique. The idol is an image of totemic feline detachment. Its full face with large staring eyes is a perfect sacred icon for pampered house cats. Yet this aloofness is mitigated by the decorative black lace mantilla and the pursed, prim, heart-shaped mouth.
Details
- Artist Name: Paul Klee (Swiss, 1879-1940)
- Title: Idol for House Cats
- Date: 1924
- Medium: Watercolor, oil transfer drawing and lace collage on chalk-primed muslin, mounted on thin cardboard
- Dimensions: comp: 13-7/8 x 18-1/4 in. (35.2 x 46.4 cm); mount: 15-3/8 x 19-3/4 in. (39.1 x 50.2 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, The Blue Four Galka Scheyer Collection
- Accession Number: P.1953.057
- Copyright: © Norton Simon Museum
Object Information
(on consignment?) at [Galerie Neue Kunst Fides, Dresden];
[Galerie Alfred Flechtheim, Berlin];
returned to artist(?), who consigned in June 1928 to;
Galka Scheyer, who purchased in June 1931;
Pasadena Art Institute, Pasadena, 1953-1954;
Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena,1954-1975;
Norton Simon Museum, 1975
Paul Klee
- Galerie Neue Kunst Fides, 1926-05-21 to 1926-06
Maven of Modernism: Galka Scheyer in California
- Norton Simon Museum, 2017-04-07 to 2017-09-25
Paul Klee
- Kunstmuseum Bern, 1956-08-11 to 1956-11-04
Paul Klee
- Norton Simon Museum, 1987-07-23 to 1988-05-15
Paul Klee
- New York, Buchholz and Willard Galleries, 1940-10-09 to 1940-11-02
Paul Klee Memorial Exhibition [organized by MOMA]
- Smith College Museum of Art, 1941-01-01 to 1941-01-22
- Arts Club of Chicago, 1941-01-31 to 1941-02-28
- Portland, Portland Art Museum, 1941-03-10 to 1941-04-09
- San Francisco Museum of Art, 1941-04-14 to 1941-05-05
- Los Angeles, Stendahl Art Galleries, 1941-05-08 to 1941-05-18
- City Art Museum of St. Louis, 1941-05-22 to 1941-06-17
- Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY), 1941-06-28 to 1941-07-27
Lost but Found: Assemblage, Collage and Sculpture, 1920-2002
- Norton Simon Museum, 2004-11-05 to 2005-03-28
German Expressionist Painting, 1900 - 1950
- Pomona College (Claremont, Calif.), 1957-10-25 to 1957-11-23
- Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1958-01-07 to 1958-02-09
- University of California, Berkeley Art Museum, 1957-12-03 to 1957-12-18
The Blue Four: Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Paul Klee
- Braxton Gallery, 1930-05-01 to 1930-05-15
Paul Klee: Paintings and Watercolors from the Bauhaus Years 1921-1931
- Des Moines Art Center, 1973-09-18 to 1973-10-28
The Nineteenth International Exhibition of Watercolors
- Art Institute of Chicago, 1940-04-25 to 1940-05-26
The Blue Four: Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Paul Klee
- California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1931-04-23 to 1931-05-08
German Expressionism
- Pasadena Art Museum, 1961-04-25 to 1961-06-04
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
- Norton Simon Museum, 1986-06-05 to 1987-06-28
The Blue Four and Their Contemporaries
- Norton Simon Museum, 1991-06-20 to 1992-05-24
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
The Blue Four
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
Die Blaue Vier: Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Klee in der Neuen Welt
- Kunstmuseum Bern, 1997-12-05 to 1998-03-01
- Dusseldorf, Kunstsammlung Nordhein-Westfalen, 1998-03-28 to 1998-06-28
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
Permanent and Loan Collection, 1973
- Pasadena Museum of Modern Art, 1973-01-30 to 1973-12-31
My Four Kings: Galka Scheyer and the Blue Four
- Norton Simon Museum, 2002-12-13 to 2003-04-14
The Spirit of Modernism: Galka Scheyer in the New World
- Norton Simon Museum, 1994-11-17 to 1996-01-14
- Haas, Robert B., Du, p. 46
- Paul Klee, p. 23
- Grohmann, Will, Paul Klee (1879-1940), 1956, pl. 5
- Huggler, Max, The Drawings of Paul Klee, 1965, p. 24
- The Blue Four Galka Scheyer Collection, Norton Simon Museum of Art at Pasadena, 1976, no. 274 pp. 108, 116
- Verdi, Richard, Klee and Nature, 1984, note 11 p. 243
- The Blue Four. Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, and Klee in the New World, 1997, no. 126 pp. 168, 352
- Paul Klee Catalogue Raisonné, Volume 4, 1923-1926, 2001, no. 3382 p. 158
- Barnett, Vivian Endicott, The Blue Four Collection at the Norton Simon Museum, 2002, no. 330 pp. 311-312
Additional Artwork by Artist
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