Name: PAUL KLEE (1879-1940)
Brand: Figurine "der Tod" (Figurine "Death")
Price: 35000.00 GBP
Availability: SoldOut

PAUL KLEE (1879-1940)
Figurine "der Tod" (Figurine "Death")
signed 'Klee' (lower right); dated, numbered and inscribed '1927 G. 8. Figurine "der Tod"' (on the artist's mount)
oil transfer drawing on paper laid down on the artist's mount
image: 18¹⁄₈ x 11⁷⁄₈ in. (46 x 30 cm.)
artist's mount: 25 x 17¹⁄₄ in. (63.5 x 43.7 cm.)
Executed in 1927

Lily Klee, Bern, by descent from the artist in 1940.
Klee-Gesellschaft, Bern, by whom acquired from the above in 1946.
Hans & Erika Meyer-Benteli, Bern.
Galerie Rosengart, Lucerne, by whom acquired from the above in 1955.
Karl Julius Anselmino, Wuppertal, by whom acquired from the above in 1956.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.

W. Grohmann, Paul Klee: Handzeichnungen 1921-1930, Potsdam & Berlin, 1934, no. 126, pp. 13-15 (illustrated).
W. Grohmann, The Drawings of Paul Klee, New York, 1944 , p. 15 (illustrated p. 17).
W. Grohmann, Paul Klee: Handzeichnungen II, 1921-1930, Bergen, 1948, no. 126, pp. 13-15 (illustrated).
J. Büchner, 'Zu den Gemälden und Aquarellen von Paul Klee im Wallraf-Richartz-Museum', in Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch, vol. 14, 1962, pp. 359-374 (illustrated p. 362).
Dover Publications, ed., Klee Drawings: 60 Works by Paul Klee, New York, 1982, p. 34.
E. Franz, 'Gestaltung und Gestaltlosigkeit bei Klee, Winter und Kirchner zu Ende der 20er Jahre', in exh., Klee - Winter - Kirchner: 1927-1931, Munich, 2001, pp. 114-125 (illustrated p. 123).
The Paul Klee Foundation, ed., Paul Klee: Catalogue Raisonné, vol. V, 1927-1930, Bern, 2001, no. 4382, p. 117 (illustrated).
M. Baumgartner, F. Eggelhöfer, C. Hopfengart & E. Wiederkehr Sladeczek, exh. cat., A Collector's Eye on Paul Klee, Bern, 2008, pp. 12-92 (illustrated p. 55).

New York, Museum of Modern Art, Paul Klee, March - April 1930, no. 32, p. 15.
Liège, A.P.I.A.W. Section de Liège, Paul Klee, Man Ray, September - October 1948, no. 38.
Dessau, Anhaltische Gemäldegalerie, Wassily Kandinsky und Paul Klee: Eine Malerfreundschaft in Dessau, February - May 2000, no. 10 (illustrated).
Münster, Westfälisches Landesmuseum, Klee - Winter - Kirchner: 1927-1931, January - March 2001, p. 154 (illustrated p. 127); this exhibition later travelled to Munich, Pinakothek der Moderne, March - April 2001.
Kyoto, National Museum of Art, Paul Klee: Art in the Making, March - May 2011, no. 71 (illustrated); this exhibition later travelled Tokyo, National Museum of Art, May - July 2011.
On loan to the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen München, 1976-2017 (loan no. L1667).

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Lot Essay

Created in 1927, Der Tod is a beautiful example of the technical complexity of Klee’s method of oil transfer drawing, an innovative technique he had pioneered in 1919 and called 'Ölfarbzeichnungen' (oil-colour drawings). In this process, Klee would cover one side of a sheet of Japan paper with a thin film of black oil paint which, when it had dried sufficiently, could be used like a piece of carbon paper to transfer the artist’s preliminary drawing on to another sheet. Carefully tracing the contours of the drawing with a metal needle, Klee used this method to create a new version of the image, altering the quality and appearance of the line as he applied varying degrees of pressure during the translation process. The result is a softer, more granular line, which appears to gradually fade in and out of view as it traverses the page, while small smudges of oil paint, accidentally pressed through by the artist’s drawing hand as he completed the tracing, lend the composition a greater sense of texture. For Klee, oil transfer drawings offered him an opportunity to introduce colour into his drawings without having to paint up to the line, or to colour in his forms. The oil paint would repel the sumptuous watercolour washes that he used to fill his backgrounds, their rich colours and subtly shifting tonalities, adding new atmospheric effects to the composition.