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Lot Essay
Seelenblick was created during Klee's rich and productive late period that began in 1937 and ended with his death in 1940. Executed in 'Kleisterfarben' - a mixture of coloured pigment and glue - that the artist favoured throughout his last years, it is a poetical painting, which title can be translated as 'Soulful Glance', probably referring to the difficult period in the artist's life. It shows a poetical composition, rendered through colour on a coarse canvas.
It was in 1935 that Klee was first diagnosed with a rare and incurable disease, scleroderma. Unable to work throughout much of 1936, the last three years of Klee's life were to witness an extraordinary development during which Klee produced a prodiguus number of pictures and the finest of work in his career.
He produced only 25 works in 1936, but this number rose to 264 in 1937, 489 in 1938 and over 1,200 in 1939.
Klee wrote to his son Felix: ''Productivity is increasing in range and at a highly accelerated tempo; I can no longer entirely keep up with these children of mine. They run away with me.'' (quoted in F. Klee, Paul Klee, His Life and Work in Documents, New York, 1962, p. 72). Knowing he was dying, it has often been argued that Klee created a requiem for himself through his art of 1938-40. ''Of course I am moving into the tragic vein,'' Klee commented at this time, ''many of my works indicate this and say: the time has come..'' (Klee, quoted in E.G. Guese, ed., Paul Klee: Dialogue with Nature, Munich 1991, p. 154).
Klee learned in 1937 that fifteen of his works had been included in the infamous exhibition of Entartete Kunst, and more than a hundred others were being removed from German museums. Despite the events of the day, and the crisis he faced in his health, Klee continued his daily routine and worked as hard as ever. The Paris dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, who by way of a contract with the artist in 1933 became Klee's exclusive agent for sales, declared, ''this late production added a note of grandeur, not hitherto discernable, to Klee's work. Thus the hero triumphs over evil'' (Klee, New York, 1950, p. 14).
The present lot was acquired by Mies van der Rohe, probably during the artist's lifetime, who gave it as a Christmas present to his daughter Manna in 1950. Van der Rohe's granddaughter received the painting from her mother at the occasion of her marriage in 1967.
It was in 1935 that Klee was first diagnosed with a rare and incurable disease, scleroderma. Unable to work throughout much of 1936, the last three years of Klee's life were to witness an extraordinary development during which Klee produced a prodiguus number of pictures and the finest of work in his career.
He produced only 25 works in 1936, but this number rose to 264 in 1937, 489 in 1938 and over 1,200 in 1939.
Klee wrote to his son Felix: ''Productivity is increasing in range and at a highly accelerated tempo; I can no longer entirely keep up with these children of mine. They run away with me.'' (quoted in F. Klee, Paul Klee, His Life and Work in Documents, New York, 1962, p. 72). Knowing he was dying, it has often been argued that Klee created a requiem for himself through his art of 1938-40. ''Of course I am moving into the tragic vein,'' Klee commented at this time, ''many of my works indicate this and say: the time has come..'' (Klee, quoted in E.G. Guese, ed., Paul Klee: Dialogue with Nature, Munich 1991, p. 154).
Klee learned in 1937 that fifteen of his works had been included in the infamous exhibition of Entartete Kunst, and more than a hundred others were being removed from German museums. Despite the events of the day, and the crisis he faced in his health, Klee continued his daily routine and worked as hard as ever. The Paris dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, who by way of a contract with the artist in 1933 became Klee's exclusive agent for sales, declared, ''this late production added a note of grandeur, not hitherto discernable, to Klee's work. Thus the hero triumphs over evil'' (Klee, New York, 1950, p. 14).
The present lot was acquired by Mies van der Rohe, probably during the artist's lifetime, who gave it as a Christmas present to his daughter Manna in 1950. Van der Rohe's granddaughter received the painting from her mother at the occasion of her marriage in 1967.