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Lot 3245 - A197 Art Impressionniste & Moderne - vendredi, 02. juillet 2021, 17h00

PAUL KLEE

(Munichbuchsee near Bern 1879–1940 Muralto)
Bergschlucht. 1934.
Gouache and chalk on primed paper on artist's board.
Signed lower right: Klee.
Dated and titled lower centre: 1934 19 Bergschlucht.
37.4 × 49.3 cm

Provenance:
- Lily Klee collection, Bern 1940–46.
- Klee-Gesellschaft, Bern, acquired from the above in 1946.
- Felix Klee collection, Bern, acquired from the above in 1953.
- Swiss private collection, acquired from the above in 1990.
- Private collection, Tokyo, acquired from the above in 2008.
- Auction Christie's, New York, 12 November 2018, lot 141.
- Swiss private collection, acquired from the above auction.

Exhibited:
- Basel 1935, Paul Klee. Kunsthalle Basel, 27 October–24 November 1935 (with ill. cat. no. 157).
- St. Gallen 1955, Klee, Werke aus dem Familienbesitz, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, 22 January–20 March 1955 (with ill. cat. no. 175)
- Amsterdam 1963, Paul Klee. Aquarellen, Stedelijk Museum, 20 September–4 November 1963 (with ill. cat. no. 64).
- Malmö/Göteborg/Stockholm 1965, Paul Klee. Malningar - teckningar, travelling exhibition: Malmö Museum, Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Konstsalongen Samlaren, Stockholm, March–June 1965 (with ill. cat. no. 72).
- Braunschweig 1976, Paul Klee. Bilder, Aquarelle Zeichnungen, Sammlung Felix Klee, Junior Galerie, 1–22 February 1976 (with ill. cat. no. 61).
- Tokyo/Takasari/Nagoya/Kobe/Kamakura 1976, Paul Klee und seine Malerfreunde, travelling exhibition: Odakyu Kaufhaus, Gumma Museum, Kaufhaus Matsuzakaya, Kaufhaus Sogo, Kamakura. The Museum of Modern Art, May–October 1976 (with ill. cat. no. 85).
- Paris 1985, Paul Klee. Les dix dernières années, Galerie Karl Flinker, 11 April–31 May 1985 (with ill. cat. no. 19).
- Himeji/Sendai/Kamakura/Shiga/Niigata 1985–1986, Paul Klee in Exile 1933–1940, travelling exhibition: Himeji City Museum of Art, Miyagi Museum of Art, Kamakura Museum of Modern Art, Shiga Museum of Modern Art, Niigata City Art Museum, September–December 1985 (with ill. cat. no. 5).
- Mendrisio 1990, Paul Klee. Ultimo decennio / Letztes Jahrzehnt 1930–1940, Museo d'arte, 7 April–8 July 1990 (with ill. cat. p. 85).
- Kanazawa/Tokyo/Kochi/Kyoto/Kasama/Hamamatsu/Osaka/Mannheim 1995–1996, Die Zeit der Reife, Klee aus der Sammlung der Familie, travelling exhibition: Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Art, Daimaru Museum Tokyo, The Museum of Art Kochi, Daimaru Museum Kyoto, Kasama Nichido Museum of Art, Hamamatsu Municipal Museum of Art, Daimaru Museum Osaka, Städtische Kunsthalle Mannheim, June 1995–July 1996 (with ill. cat. no. 50).
- Dusseldorf 2001, Paul Klee. Kleinode, Die Sammlung, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, 23 June–26 August 2001.
- Basel 2008, Paul Klee, Museum Fondation Beyeler, 3 June–13 September 2008 (with ill. cat. no. 34, p. 88, coloured ill. p. 61).

Literature:
- Paul-Klee-Stiftung and Kunstmuseum Bern (ed.): Catalogue raisonné Paul Klee, vol. 7, p. 45, no. 6557 (with ill.).
- Jürg Spiller: Paul Klee. Das bildnerische Denken. Form- und Gestaltungslehre, vol. 1, Basel/Stuttgart 1956, p. 253, note 1, 515 (with ill.).
- H. Schönemann: "Diesseits und jenseits des Gegenstandes: Paul Klees 'Abenteuer-Schiff' und 'Der bunte Dampfer' von Wolfgang Mattheuer", in: Akten Dresden 1986, p. 62–65.

In 1933 Paul Klee emigrated to Bern. The move was not entirely voluntary: the new National Socialist government in Germany had removed him from his position at the Düsseldorf Academy and declared his art to be “degenerate”. With the words “Gentlemen, there is a dangerous smell of corpses in Europe”, he said goodbye to his colleagues in Dusseldorf and moved to Switzerland.

Klee initially needed some time to settle in Bern. Although the artist had grown up in Switzerland, he experienced the more provincial Bern as a completely new environment after having lived in Munich, Weimar, Dessau and lastly Düsseldorf. Nevertheless, the next period of productivity followed not long thereafter and by the spring of 1934 Klee had already begun to work intensively again. The artist’s subsequent works from 1934 onwards ushered in his last creative period, his late work.

The work offered here, ‘Bergschlucht’, was therefore created during a period of change in Klee's life, which manifested itself in new forms of expression, colours and subjects. Although relatively few of his works from 1934 onwards refer to the critical political situation in Germany at that time, hints of his mood can be detected in the rather gloomy palette of his work from those years. Whereas the somewhat muted tones lend the scene a slightly cloudy character, it is repeatedly interrupted by penetrating accents of bright colour. Through an interplay of chalk and gouache, the artist has created flowing transitions of colour that impart the composition with a harmonious and friendly appearance. Klee has coloured the edges of the paper, which serves as a material support, in a brownish hue, thus enhancing the effect of the depicted mountain gorge. Did Paul Klee take inspiration from the Swiss mountain landscape for our work? Klee was greatly interested in fathoming the special features of nature and resembling them in his creative work. This fascination can also be seen in our work with its larger, more open colour fields in the outer area of the picture and its condensed lines in the centre. As a result, Klee has created spatial depth, a tangible three-dimensionality that brings the viewing experience to life. The materiality of the picture surface further intensifies this effect through its slightly wrinkled texture. The Swiss mountain landscape and its fascinating nature thus received Klee's full artistic attention.

Upon Paul Klee's death in 1940, the present work produced in Bern entered the collection of his wife Lily Klee. After changing ownership abroad at the beginning of the 2000s, the drawing has been back in Switzerland since 2018.

CHF 350 000 / 400 000 | (€ 360 820 / 412 370)