Maid of Saxony
1922
Paul Klee (Swiss, 1879-1940)
Not on View

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. Maid of Saxony is made of largely unmodulated areas of color, the flattened shapes create a surprising effect, in which 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: Maid of Saxony
  • Date: 1922
  • Medium: Oil on oil-primed muslin with metallic paper strips mounted on thin cardboard
  • Dimensions: comp: 13-5/8 x 8-1/8 in. (34.6 x 20.6 cm); mount: 15-1/8 x 9-1/4 in. (38.4 x 23.5 cm)
  • Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, The Blue Four Galka Scheyer Collection
  • Accession Number: P.1953.063
  • Copyright: © Norton Simon Museum

Object Information

The artist, sent 1924 to;
Galka Scheyer, who purchased it in 1930;
Pasadena Art Institute, Pasadena, 1953-1954;
Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena,1954-1975;
Norton Simon Museum, 1975.

A Century of Progress

  • Art Institute of Chicago, 1933-06-01 to 1933-11-01

The Blue Four: Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Paul Klee

  • Braxton Gallery, 1930-05-01 to 1930-05-15

The Blue Four: Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Paul Klee

  • New York, The Daniel Gallery, 1925-02-20 to 1925-03-10

Paul Klee: Paintings and Watercolors from the Bauhaus Years 1921-1931

  • Des Moines Art Center, 1973-09-18 to 1973-10-28

Blue Four exhibition

  • San Diego, San Diego Fine Arts Gallery, 1927-01 to 1927-02
  • San Diego, San Diego Fine Arts Gallery, to

The Blue Four: Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Paul Klee

  • Portland, Portland Art Association and the Museum of Art, 1927-04-08 to 1927-05-01
  • Spokane, Spokane Art Association, 1927-05-15 to 1927-05-31
  • San Francisco, California School of Fine Arts, 1927-03-01 to 1927-03-20

Blue Four exhibition

  • Henry Art Gallery, 1927-10 to 1927-10

The Blue Four: Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Paul Klee

  • California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1931-04-23 to 1931-05-08

The Blue Four: Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Paul Klee

  • Oakland Art Gallery, 1926-05-02 to 1926-06-15

The Blue Four: Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Paul Klee

  • Los Angeles, University of California, Los Angeles, Art Department, 1926-11 to 1926-12-28
  • Los Angeles, Los Angeles Museum, 1926-10 to

German Expressionism

  • Pasadena Art Museum, 1961-04-25 to 1961-06-04

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

Paul Klee Memorial Exhibition [organized by MOMA]

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

Maven of Modernism: Galka Scheyer in California

  • Norton Simon Museum, 2017-04-07 to 2017-09-25

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

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

Selections from Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Paul Klee. The Blue Four Galka E. Scheyer Collection

  • Seattle Art Museum, 1956-10-10 to 1956-11-04
  • Portland, Portland Art Museum, 1956-11-08 to 1956-11-30
  • , 1957-01-01 to 1957-01-31
  • Marion Koogler McNay Art Institute, 1957-03-02 to 1957-04-01
  • Kansas City, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery, 1957-11-15 to 1957-12-15
  • San Francisco Museum of Art, 1958-01-14 to 1958-02-23
  • Vancouver Art Gallery, 1956-07 to 1956-08-31

The Blue Four and Their Contemporaries

  • Norton Simon Museum, 1991-06-20 to 1992-05-24

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 Blue Four

Die Blaue Vier: Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Klee in der Neuen Welt

  • Kunstmuseum Bern, 1997-12-05 to 1998-03-01
  • Dusseldorf, Kunstsammlung Nordhein-Westfalen, 1998-03-28 to 1998-06-28

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

My Four Kings: Galka Scheyer and the Blue Four

  • Norton Simon Museum, 2002-12-13 to 2003-04-14

The Blue Four-Galka Scheyer Collection From The Norton Simon Museum

  • Henry Art Gallery, 1997-07-17 to 1997-10-05
  • Paul Klee, p. 18
  • Lanchner, Carolyn, Paul Klee, fig. 13 p. 97
  • Huggler, Max, The Drawings of Paul Klee, 1965, p. 26
  • The Blue Four Galka Scheyer Collection, Norton Simon Museum of Art at Pasadena, 1976, no. 272 pp. 108, 114
  • Osterwold, Tilman, Paul Klee: Ein Kind träumt sich, 1979, p. 147
  • Herbert, Robert L., Eleanor S. Apter, Elise K. Kenney, The Société Anonyme and the Dreier Bequest at Yale Universiy: A Catalogue Raisonné, 1984, p. 383
  • Boas, Nancy, The Society of Six: California Colorists, 1988, p. 109
  • The Blue Four. Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, and Klee in the New World, 1997, no. 122 pp. 161, 351
  • Paul Klee Catalogue Raisonné, Volume 3, 1919-1922, 1999, no. 2956
  • Barnett, Vivian Endicott, The Blue Four Collection at the Norton Simon Museum, 2002, no. 325 pp. 304-305
  • Gilbert Holzgang, Galka Scheyer : Ein Leben für Kunst und Kreativität, 2023, p. 183 (ill.)

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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