Name: PAUL KLEE (1879-1940)
Brand: Zerstörung und Hoffnung ('Destruction and Hope')
Price: 5000.00 GBP
Availability: InStock

PAUL KLEE (1879-1940)
Zerstörung und Hoffnung ('Destruction and Hope')
lithograph with handcolouring
1916
on Japan paper
monogrammed Kl, titled and numbered 1/60 in pencil
handcoloured by the artist with watercolour in blue, green, yellow, blue, orange and purple (colour variant AB)
a fine impression of the second, final state
from the first edition of 15 impressions on this paper (there was also an edition of 45 on Van Gelder laid paper, and some unnumbered impressions)
published by Hans Goltz, Munich, 1916
the full sheet
the colours attenuated (as usual), some minor staining
otherwise in good condition
Image 47,6 x 33,5 cm. (18³⁄₄ x 13¹⁄₄ in.)
Sheet 52 x 40 cm. (20¹⁄₂ x 15³⁄₄ in.)

Heinrich Stinnes (circa 1870-1932), Cologne (Lugt 1376a); then by descent; his posthumous sale, Gutekunst & Klipstein, Bern, 20-22 July 1938, lot 554.
Annmarie & Werner Aebli-Streiff, Zurich (with their stamp; not in Lugt); acquired at the above sale; then presumably by descent in the family.
Galerie Kornfeld, Bern, 17 June 2005, lot 87.
Acquired at the above sale; then by descent to the present owners.

E.W. Kornfeld (ed.), Verzeichnis des graphischen Werkes von Paul Klee, Bern, 2005, no. 68 II.B.a., pp. 174-179 (other impressions ill.).

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Lot Essay

Zerstörung und Hoffnung was a commission by the art and book dealer and publisher Hans Goltz (1873-1927), who was one of the foremost patrons of modern art in Germany. The idea for a print edition emerged from an exhibition at Goltz's gallery on the theme of War, which Klee must have seen during a military leave. By October 1916 he must have composed the image and Goltz had the edition printed. Klee began handcolouring the prints on 23 October and presumably had completed the task by the end of that same month. It is one of his most abstract prints and arguably the most ambitious coloured print in his oeuvre.
Unfortunately some of the watercolours, especially the yellow and purple, suffered from light-exposure and nearly all impressions are attenuated to a certain degree. The example of the same colour variant (AB) illustrated by Kornfeld shows very similar colour changes as the present example.
This impression of Zerstörung und Hoffnung comes from the famous prints collection of Heinrich Stinnes, in the words of Frits Lugt 'déjà avant la première guerre mondiale une des meilleures et plus riches de l'Allemagne' (see Lugt 1376a). Stinnes liked to own impressions numbered 1 (out of any edition he decided to acquire), a fact that many artists and publishers must been aware of and hence reserved those for him, as was presumably the case with the present sheet.