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 Triple 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: Triple Portrait
- Date: 1921
- Medium: Watercolor and India ink on heavy wove paper mounted on wove paper; mounted on cardboard, mounted (not by the artist) on cardboard
- Dimensions: sheet: 6-1/8 x 5-7/8 in. (15.6 x 14.9 cm); mount: 7-3/4 x 6-1/2 in. (19.7 x 16.5 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, The Blue Four Galka Scheyer Collection
- Accession Number: P.1953.051
- Copyright: © Norton Simon Museum
Object Information
Galka Scheyer;
Pasadena Art Institute, Pasadena, 1953-1954;
Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena,1954-1975;
Norton Simon Museum, 1975.
The Blue Four: Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Paul Klee
- Braxton Gallery, 1930-05-01 to 1930-05-15
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, 1987-07-23 to 1988-05-15
Contemporary German Watercolor Painting
- California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1936-06-06 to 1936-08-01
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
The Galka E. Scheyer Collection
- Mills College Art Gallery, 1961-01-10 to 1961-02-19
Paul Klee Memorial Exhibition [organized by MOMA]
- San Francisco Museum of Art, 1941-04-14 to 1941-05-05
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
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
The Galka Scheyer Collection: Klee, Nolde, Jawlensky, Moholy-Nagy, Schmidt-Rottluff, Schwitters, Archipenko, Kandinsky, Lissitzky, Feininger, Kirchner, Dix_1
- La Jolla, Art Center in La Jolla, 1960-07-05 to 1960-08-14
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
Paul Klee
- Norton Simon Museum, 1986-06-05 to 1987-06-28
Bauhaus Painters; Spirit of Modernism: Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, El Lissitzky, Oskar Schlemmer, Alexander Archipenko, Alexei Jawlensky and Others
- Seoul, Ho-Am Art Museum, 1996-02-08 to 1996-04-28
Gaze: Portraiture After Ingres
- Norton Simon Museum, 2009-10-30 to 2010-04-05
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
The Blue Four-Galka Scheyer Collection From The Norton Simon Museum
- Henry Art Gallery, 1997-07-17 to 1997-10-05
My Four Kings: Galka Scheyer and the Blue Four
- Norton Simon Museum, 2002-12-13 to 2003-04-14
- Paul Klee, p. 13
- The Blue Four Galka Scheyer Collection, Norton Simon Museum of Art at Pasadena, 1976, no. 265 pp. 105, 111
- Paul Klee Catalogue Raisonné, Volume 3, 1919-1922, 1999, no. 2623
- Barnett, Vivian Endicott, The Blue Four Collection at the Norton Simon Museum, 2002, no. 311 pp. 283-284
Additional Artwork by Artist
Image reproduction permission may be granted for scholarly or arts related commercial use. All image requests, regardless of their intended purpose, should be submitted via the reproduction request form.
Images may be protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights. Additional permission may be required.
Approved requests for the reproduction of an image will receive a contract detailing all fees and conditions of use of the image. Upon receipt of both the signed contract and full payment, the Office of Rights and Reproductions will provide the image. A complimentary copy of the published material must be provided to the Norton Simon Museum.