Painting and teaching in the creative atmosphere of the Bauhaus in Dessau in 1929, Paul Klee had just turned fifty. This event was celebrated by a major exhibition of his work held at the Alfred Flechtheim Gallery in Berlin. Here in this bold playful portrait of a clown, he makes an intuitive translation of this conceptual idea through his use of brilliant coloration and economy of shape. Both work together in order to synthesize the very essence of a clown. This double view of a single image is reminiscent of Picasso's Cubist method, however, Klee's presentation emphasizes a definite childlike fantasy and simplicity.

Grohmann in a discussion of this painting writes:

The oval face divided into sections by a zigzag,
the green neck, the clown's costume, the little
green hat pushed to one side, the green button
on the right shoulder - all these things are as
though painted in a felicitous moment, and yet
they are balanced down to the last detail.
Similarly balanced are the pink and the brown
of the face with the green of the neck, the
button, and the hat on the brick-colored
background. This clown, with his red eye and
the receding nose, has a quixotic quality; how
this comes about remains a mystery. It is the
effect of imponderables-the slit of his right
eye, the regular, blue mouth, the rigid neck,
the provacative, hot background which seems to
encourage absurd actions. Daumier attempts to
render the psychology of Don Quixote as conceived
by Cervantes; Klee gives us a figure which
reminds us equally of Aristophanes and of
Cervantes; but in fact it is a completely new
creation. (W. Grohmann, 1956,op. cit., p. 16)

The first owner of this painting was Ida Bienert, an important Dresden collector between the two wars. She not only influenced other collectors but also supported major artists of this period, like Kandinsky and of course Klee. Her first Klee was purchased in 1915 and by 1933 her collection had blossomed to over forty works of different dates and various mediums.