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PAUL KLEE (1879-1940)

Details
PAUL KLEE (1879-1940)

Eindruck von Tegernsee
signed lower left Klee--dated and numbered on the mount 1919.143.--watercolor and gouache on joined paper laid down by the artist on board
Image size: 11 3/8 x 7½ in. (29 x 19 cm.)
Mount size: 12½ x 9½ in. (31.8 x 24 cm.)
Painted in 1919
Provenance
Galerie Rosengart, Lucerne
Saidenberg Gallery, New York
Literature
Oeuvre-Katalog Klee, 1919, no. 143

Lot Essay

Klee was discharged from military service in December, 1918 and in early 1919 he rented a studio in the Suresnes Castle in Munich. In April leftists took power in the city and Klee joined the Action Committee of Revolutionary Artists headed by Hans Richter. Within a couple of months, however, the right-wing Freikorps seized control and initiated widespread purges of those who had been sympathetic to progressive causes. Fearing for his life, Klee fled to Switzerland in June, 1919.

Klee's participation in the Munich revolution is reflected in some of his drawings and watercolors during this period. At the same time, however, he continued to explore nature and the landscape, developing his ideas of color.

A photo-certificate from Josef Helfenstein and Stefan Frey of the Paul Klee-Stiftung dated Bern, February 3, 1993 accompanies this watercolor.