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
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
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