Inscription: Signed (lower left): Klee; dated and inscribed on cardboard (lower left): 1922/30; (lower right): Wandbild aus dem Tempel der Sehnsucht ↖dorthin↗
the artist (1922–23; sold in August 1923 to Ralfs); Otto and Kate Ralfs, Brunswick (1923–ca. 1945; per Kate Ralfs in 1987, stored at end of World War II in Kattowitz, Germany [now Poland] and lost); private collection, Jersey Island; private collection, London; [Grabowski Gallery, London, until 1981; sale, Christie's, London, March 30, 1981, no. 65, sold to Berggruen]; Heinz Berggruen, Paris and Berlin (1981–84; gift to MMA)
Munich. Hans Goltz. "Zehn Jahre neue Kunst in München. Erster Teil: Aquarelle, Zeichnungen, Graphik," November–December 1922, no. 152 (listed as "unverkäuflich" [not for sale]).
Hannover. Kestnergesellschaft. "Paul Klee," May–June 1923, no catalogue.
Berlin. Galerie Alfred Flechtheim. "Paul Klee," March 18–April 24, 1928, no. 50a (as "Wandbild im Tempel der Sehnsucht Dorthin," lent by Otto Ralfs, Braunschweig).
Berlin. Nationalgalerie. "Zeichnungen von Paul Klee aus der Sammlung Otto Ralfs, Braunschweig," opened April 4, 1930, no. 32.
Hannover. Kestnergesellschaft. "Paul Klee: Gemälde, Aquarelle, Graphik 1903 bis 1930," March 7–April 5, 1931, unnumbered cat. (as "Wandbild aus dem Tempel der Sehnsucht 'dorthin'," lent by Ralfs, Braunschweig).
Museum of Modern Art, New York. "Paul Klee," February 12–May 5, 1987, unnumbered cat. (p. 175).
Cleveland Museum of Art. "Paul Klee," June 24–August 16, 1987, unnumbered cat.
Kunstmuseum Bern. "Paul Klee: Leben und Werk," September 25, 1987–January 3, 1988, no. 112.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Paul Klee: The Berggruen Klee Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," May 6–July 31, 1988, unnumbered cat. (p. 153).
Kunsthalle Tübingen. "Paul Klee: Die Sammlung Berggruen im Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York und im Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris," January 22–April 16, 1989, unnumbered cat. (p. 155).
London. Tate Gallery. "Paul Klee: The Berggruen Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris," May 17–August 13, 1989, unnumbered cat. (p. 155).
Mexico City. Centro Cultural Arte Contemporáneo. "Paul Klee: Selección de sesenta obras. The Berggruen Klee Collection. The Metropolitan Museum of Art," October 1989–January 1990, no. 30.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Paul Klee: His Teaching Years," opened April 12, 1991, no catalogue.
Nagoya. Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art. "Paul Klee Retrospective," April 2–May 23, 1993, no. 108.
Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum of Art. "Paul Klee Retrospective," June 1–July 25, 1993, no. 108.
Tokyo. Bunkamura Museum of Art. "Paul Klee Retrospective," July 31–September 21, 1993, no. 108.
Edinburgh. Royal Scottish Academy. "The Romantic Spirit in German Art 1790–1990," July 28–September 7, 1994, no. 163.
London. Hayward Gallery. "The Romantic Spirit in German Art 1790–1990," September 29, 1994–January 8, 1995, no. 163.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Paul Klee at the Bauhaus," April 18–August 17, 1997, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Klee's Best," May 24–September 22, 2002, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Klee the Voyager," February 4–May 4, 2003, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Klee Abstract," September 5–December 7, 2003, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Klee: His Years at the Bauhaus (1921–1931)," November 19, 2004–April 3, 2005, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Klee: Path to Abstraction," April 9–August 4, 2013, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art [The Met Breuer]. "Humor and Fantasy: The Berggruen Paul Klee Collection," September 1, 2016–January 2, 2017, no catalogue.
Ottawa. National Gallery of Canada. "Paul Klee: The Berggruen Collection from the Metropolitan Museum of Art," November 16, 2018–March 17, 2019, no catalogue.
Will Grohmann. "Paul Klee 1923/24." Der Cicerone 16, no. 17 (1924), p. 788, ill. p. 790.
Will Grohmann. Paul Klee. Paris, 1929, pp. xxx–xxxi, no. 19, ill. p. 11, dates it 1921 and locates it in the collection of O. Ralfs, Brunswick.
Will Grohmann. "Paul Klee und die Tradition." Bauhaus no. 3 (December 1931), p. [4].
Wolfgang Willrich. Säuberung des Kunsttempels. Eine kunstpolitische Kampfschrift zur Gesundung deutscher Kunst im Geiste nordischer Art. Munich, 1937, pp. 86–87, ill.
Will Grohmann. Paul Klee. New York, [1954], p. 206, as "Mural from the Temple of Desire (Thither)".
Jürg Spiller, ed. Paul Klee: The Thinking Eye. The Notebooks of Paul Klee. New York, 1961, p. 525, ill. p. 406 [German ed., Basel, 1956], calls it "Mural from the temple of yearning ↖thither↗".
"Kultur. Verbrechen, Kunstraub: Entflammte Liebe." Der Spiegel no. 29 (July 15, 1964), pp. 57–58, ill.
Will Grohmann. Paul Klee. New York, [1967], p. 160.
Mark Rosenthal inPaul Klee: Das graphische und plastische Werk. Exh. cat., Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum, Duisburg. Geneva, 1974, p. 35, fig. 27.
Mark Lawrence Rosenthal. "Paul Klee and the Arrow." PhD diss., University of Iowa, 1979, pp. 62–65, 107, fig. 48, calls it "Mural from the Temple of Yearning ↖ Thither ↗"; describes the upturned arrows as symbols of spiritual energy that transform "the 19th-century juxtaposition of man and nature to a 20th-century idiom".
Peter Lufft. Das Gästebuch Otto Ralfs. Brunswick, 1985, pp. 20, 77, notes that this picture was one of the first Klees to enter Ralfs's collection, and that when Klee saw it during a visit to the collector's home on October 1,1923, he wrote an explanatory sketch for it in Ralfs's guestbook [ill. p. 77; see Ref. Glaesemer 1987].
Andreas Hüneke. "'Weg mit Zwitschermaschine & Paukenorgel!' Paul Klee und die Aktion 'Entartete Kunst'." Paul Klee. Vorträge der wissenschaftlichen Konferenz in Dresden, 19. und 20. Dezember 1984. Berlin, 1986, p. 67.
Jürgen Glaesemer inPaul Klee. Ed. Carolyn Lanchner. Exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York. New York, 1987, pp. 67–69, 72, 81 nn. 5, 7, fig. 3, ill. p. 175 (color), calls it "Mural from the Temple of Longing ↖Over There↗"; compares it to Caspar David Friedrich's painting, "Wanderer over a Sea of Fog" (ca. 1818; Kunsthalle Hamburg), remarking that both works convey the German Romantic notion of longing as "forging the bond between the opposite poles of earthly constraint and cosmic freedom"; finds similar references to the arrow as a symbol of longing in an April 1922 lecture given by Klee at the Bauhaus; translates Klee's explanatory sketch for this picture in Otto Ralfs' guestbook: "We stand erect and rooted in the earth/ Currents move us lightly back and forth/ The only free longing is the longing to go over there:/ to moons and suns".
Sabine Rewald. Paul Klee: The Berggruen Klee Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1988, pp. 152–53, 279, 318, ill. (color and bw), notes that this picture was adapted from a pencil drawing (HR 2862; private collection, Italy); suggests that it relates to Klee's 1922 lecture presenting the "somewhat farfetched analogy" of the arrow as an indication of man's progress from physicality to spirituality [see Ref. Glaesemer 1987].
Christine Hopfengart. Klee: Vom Sonderfall zum Publikumsliebling. Stationen seiner öffentlichen Resonanz in Deutschland 1905–1960. Mainz, 1989, p. 50 n. 126.
Mark Roskill. Klee, Kandinsky, and the Thought of Their Time: A Critical Perspective. Urbana, 1992, p. 83, pl. 31.
Henrike Junge. "Otto Ralfs. Sammler, Mäzen und Wegbereiter der Avantgarde in der Provinz." Avantgarde und Publikum: Zur Rezeption avantgardistischer Kunst in Deutschland 1905–1933. Ed. Henrike Junge. Cologne, 1992, p. 243, cites a June 25, 1923 letter from Ralfs to Klee stating that he wishes to purchase something from Exh. Hannover 1923, including this picture, asking if Klee would consider lowering the prices; adds that Ralfs actually bought this picture during his first visit to the Bauhaus in 1923.
Young-Jou Kang. "La Problématique du signe dans les oeuvres de Paul Klee." PhD diss., Université Panthéon-Sorbonne, 1995, pp. 22–24, pl. 3.
Christiane Dessauer-Reiners. Das Rhythmische bei Paul Klee. Eine Studie zum genetischen Bildverfahren. Worms, 1996, pp. 79, 206, fig. 17.
Josef Helfenstein and Christian Rümelin, ed. Paul Klee: Catalogue Raisonné. Ed. Paul Klee Foundation, Museum of Fine Arts, Berne. Vol. 3, 1919–1922. New York, 1999, pp. 371, 374, no. 2854, ill. pp. 371, 394 (color), call it "Wandbild aus dem Tempel der Sehnsucht ↖Dorthin↗ (Mural from the Temple of Desire ↖Thither↗ )".
Charles W. Haxthausen. "Zwischen Darstellung und Parodie: Klees 'auratische' Bilder." Paul Klee: Kunst und Karriere. Beiträge des Internationalen Symposiums in Bern. Ed. Oskar Bätschmann and Josef Helfenstein. Bern, 2000, pp. 20–21, fig. 10.
Vivian Endicott Barnett. The Blue Four Collection at the Norton Simon Museum. [Pasadena], 2002, p. 300 n. 9.
Will Grohmann. Der Maler Paul Klee. 4th ed. (1st ed., 1966). Cologne, 2003, p. 140 [German ed. of Ref. Grohmann 1967].
Otto Karl Werckmeister inPaul Klee im Rheinland: Zeichnungen, Aquarelle, Gouachen. Ed. Uta Gerlach-Laxner and Frank Günter Zehnder. Exh. cat., Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn. Cologne, 2003, p. 248, fig. 14.
Justus Lange inThe Klee Universe. Ed. Dieter Scholz Christina Thomson. Exh. cat., Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin. Ostfildern, 2008, p. 357.
Boris Friedewald. Paul Klee: Life and Work. Munich, 2011, pp. 112–13, 189, ill. (color).
Anita Beloubek-Hammer. "'Inversion of Values'/'Umkerung der Werte': Zum Einfluss der Lebensphilosophie Henri Bergsons auf Lyonel Feiningers Kunstauffassung." Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 53 (2011), p. 37, fig. 5 (color).
Christine Hopfengart and Michael Baumgartner. Paul Klee: Life and Work. Ed. Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern. Ostfildern, 2012, pp. 158–59, ill. (color).
Marcella Sirhandi. "Mohan Samant (1924–2004). Part I. Biography. Part II: Styles and Techniques, Themes and Subjects." Mohan Samant: Paintings. Ahmedabad, 2013, p. 265, fig. 140 (color).
Paul Klee was unrivaled among his contemporaries in his wide-ranging experimentation with materials and unconventional techniques. Join scholar Charles W. Haxthausen as he explores the variety of Klee’s practice and reflects on its art-historical implications.
Paul Klee (German (born Switzerland), Münchenbuchsee 1879–1940 Muralto-Locarno)
1921
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