Drawing for "The Pathos of Fertility"
1921
Paul Klee (Swiss, 1879-1940)
Not on View

In this preparatory drawing for a watercolor now in the Metropolitan Museum, Klee depicts a pregnant woman as a flowerpot, incubating sprouting plant forms. Her intense anguish is magnified by the tilted head and awkward angles of her arms and legs.

Details

  • Artist Name: Paul Klee (Swiss, 1879-1940)
  • Title: Drawing for "The Pathos of Fertility"
  • Date: 1921
  • Medium: Pencil on wove paper mounted on thin cardboard
  • Dimensions: sheet: 11-1/8 x 8-3/4 in. (28.3 x 22.2 cm); mount: 15-3/4 x 13-1/2 in. (40.0 x 34.3 cm)
  • Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, The Blue Four Galka Scheyer Collection
  • Accession Number: P.1953.047
  • Copyright: © Norton Simon Museum

Object Information

Paul Klee: The Nature of Creation

  • Hayward Gallery, 2002-01-17 to 2002-04-01

Paul Klee

  • Nationalgalerie Berlin, 1923-02 to

Paul Klee Memorial Exhibition [organized by MOMA]

  • San Francisco Museum of Art, 1941-04-14 to 1941-05-05

30 Years of Painting, Water Colors, Drawings and Lithographs by Paul Klee

  • Modern Institute of Art (Beverly Hills, California), 1948-09-03 to 1948-10-06

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

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

The Spirit of Modernism: Galka Scheyer in the New World

  • Norton Simon Museum, 1994-11-17 to 1996-01-14

Permanent and Loan Collection, 1973

  • Pasadena Museum of Modern Art, 1973-01-30 to 1973-12-31
  • Paul Klee, p. 19
  • Grohmann, Will, Paul Klee: Handzeichnungen 1921-1930, 1934, p. 17
  • The Blue Four Galka Scheyer Collection, Norton Simon Museum of Art at Pasadena, 1976, no. 297 pp. 124, 129
  • Rewald, Sabine, Paul Klee: The Berggruen Klee Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1988, fig. 33 p. 148
  • Paul Klee Catalogue Raisonné, Volume 3, 1919-1922, 1999, no. 2761
  • Barnett, Vivian Endicott, The Blue Four Collection at the Norton Simon Museum, 2002, no. 322 pp. 300-301
  • Kudielka, Robert; and Bridget Riley, Paul Klee: The Nature of Creation, Works 1914 - 1940, 2002, fig. 29 p. 68
  • Wünsche, Isabel, Galka E. Scheyer and the Blue Four: Correspondence 1924 - 1945, 2005, fig. 22 p. 57

Additional Artwork by Artist

Absorption Paul Klee 1919
Arabian Bride Paul Klee 1924
First Drawing for "Specter of a Genius" Paul Klee 1922

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