Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.
Artwork Details
Use your arrow keys to navigate the tabs below, and your tab key to choose an item
Title:Bird Landscape
Artist:Paul Klee (German (born Switzerland), Münchenbuchsee 1879–1940 Muralto-Locarno)
Date:1925
Medium:Watercolor and transferred printing ink on paper mounted on cardboard
Dimensions:16 1/2 × 22 5/8 in. (41.9 × 57.5 cm)
Classification:Drawings
Credit Line:The Berggruen Klee Collection, 1984
Accession Number:1984.315.46
Inscription: Signed (lower left): Klee; dated and inscribed on cardboard (lower center): 1925 "U neun" Vogellandschaft
Marking: Watermark: swirled monogram, FRANCE
the artist, Dessau (1925–30; on consignment with Galerie Alfred Flechtheim, 1930–probably until 1933; on consignment with Galerie Simon [Daniel Henry Kahnweiler], Paris, probably 1933–34, no. 11408; sent by Kahnweiler on October 4, 1934 to J. B. Neumann, New York; sold by Neumann to Wiener); Paul Wiener, New York (in 1940); [Buchholz Gallery (Curt Valentin), New York, sold after 1945 to Katzenellenbogen]; Estella Katzenellenbogen, Los Angeles (after 1945–76; sold in 1976 to Feilchenfeldt); [Galerie Feilchenfeldt, Zürich, 1976]; Heinz Berggruen, Paris and Berlin (1976–84; his gift to MMA)
Düsseldorf. Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen. "Paul Klee," June 14–July 6, 1931, no. 172.
Tokyo. Fuji Television Gallery. "Exhibition of Paul Klee," October 23–November 21, 1981, no. 19 (lent by Heinz Berggruen).
Osaka. Gallery Kasahara. "Exhibition of Paul Klee," November 27–December 12, 1981, no catalogue.
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. 211).
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. 221).
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. 221).
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. 51.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Klee Landscapes," November 20, 1997–February 8, 1998, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Landscapes by Klee and Kiefer," January 19–September 30, 2001, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Klee: The Late Years," March 19–June 27, 2004, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Klee Landscapes," November 1, 2005–March 5, 2006, 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.
Jerome Klein. "The Line of Introversion." New Freeman 1, no. 4 (April 5, 1930), pp. 88–89 [possibly this work], describes a "Landscape with Bird" on view at Neumann's gallery in which "forms only half discernible float through a mournful landscape over which hovers a blackish bird".
Paul Klee. Exh. cat., Buchholz Gallery, New York. New York, 1940, unpaginated list of Klee works in American collections [possibly this picture], listed as "Landscape with Birds," watercolor, in the collection of Mr. Paul Wiener, New York.
Haruo Arikawa inExhibition of Paul Klee. Exh. cat., Fuji Television Gallery. Tokyo, 1981, p. 70, no. 19, ill. p. 42, calls it a reworking of the ink drawing "Travel Bird" (1925; present location unknown: HR 3807).
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. 210–11, 284, 318, ill. (color and bw).
Josef Helfenstein and Christian Rümelin, ed. Paul Klee: Catalogue Raisonné. Ed. Paul Klee Foundation, Museum of Fine Arts, Berne. Vol. 4, 1923–1926. New York, 2000, pp. 352, 380, no. 3890, ill.
Paul Klee (German (born Switzerland), Münchenbuchsee 1879–1940 Muralto-Locarno)
1920
Resources for Research
The Met's Libraries and Research Centers provide unparalleled resources for research and welcome an international community of students and scholars.
The Met Collection API is where all makers, creators, researchers, and dreamers can connect to the most up-to-date data and public domain images for The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.
Feedback
We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.
The Met's engagement with art from 1890 to today includes the acquisition and exhibition of works in a range of media, spanning movements in modernism to contemporary practices from across the globe.
