Lot 16 | Paul Klee | "Festlich"

KLEE, PAUL
1879 Münchenbuchsee - 1940 Muralto/ Ticino

Title: "Festlich".
Date: 1940.
Technique: Pastel and charcoal on Linnen, laid down on paper.
Measurement: 41 x 31cm. Backing board: 46.7 x 36.2cm.
Notation: Signed lower right: Klee (fadedd beyondrecognition). Dated, inscribed and dated on the backing board: 1940 F12 festlich.
Frame/Pedestal: Craftman's frame.

This work is accompanied by a photo certificate from Josef Helfenstein and Stefan Frey, Paul Klee Foundation, Bern, dated 2 October 1995.

Provenance:
- Lily Klee, Bern (1940-1946)
- Klee Society, Bern (1946-1947)
- Galerie Rosengart, Lucerne (1947-1948)
- Theodor Schempp, Paris/New York (from 1948)
- Private collection
- Christie's New York, auction 8 November 1995, lot 280
- Galerie Neher, Essen (label)
- Private collection North Rhine-Westphalia (acquired from previous owner in 1998)

Exhibitions:
- Musée national d'Art Moderne, Paris 1948, no. 182
- The Arts Club, Chicago 1962, no. 65
- Galerie Neher, Essen 1996, ill.
- Galerie Neher/Westdeutsche Kunstmesse International, Cologne 1997
- Galerie Neher/Westdeutsche Kunstmesse International, Cologne 1998
- Museum Schloss Moyland, Bedburg-Hau 2000
- Kurpfälzisches Museum der Stadt Heidelberg, 2002

Literature:
- Paul Klee Foundation/Kunstmuseum Bern (ed.): Paul Klee - Catalogue raisonné, vol. 9, Bern 2004, cat. rais. no. 9371, ill.
- Paul Klee Foundation/Kunstmuseum Bern (ed.): Paul Klee, Verzeichnis der Werke des Jahres 1940, Stuttgart 1991, cat. rais. no. 1940, 352 (F12), ill.

- A work of quiet monumentality that reveals the spiritual depth and formal mastery of the late Klee
- From the last year of the artist's life, which was marked by great creative energy
- A vibrant tension between the black grid and the play of light and colour

Creative addiction in his final years
Paul Klee's oeuvre is characterised by a conflict between abstraction and figuration, music and painting, thought and feeling. This ambivalence makes him one of the central pioneers of modernism to this day. After studying at the Munich Academy and early stylistic experiments, Klee joined the artist group "Der Blaue Reiter" in 1911, where he formulated a new, spiritually imbued form of art in dialogue with Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc. His years of teaching at the Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau from 1921 to 1931 and at the Düsseldorf Academy from 1931 onwards influenced a generation of artists and established his status as one of the most influential teachers of modernism. In 1933, Klee was defamed as "degenerate" by the National Socialists and dismissed from his post. In the same year, he emigrated to Switzerland, where he began a late, intense creative phase in Bern.

In 1935, Klee fell ill with scleroderma, an incurable autoimmune disease. The consequences of the illness and exile plunged Klee into a deep depression. A brief period of inactivity in 1936, during which his strictly maintained list of works recorded just 25 pieces, was followed in 1937 by a seemingly explosive unleashing of creative energy and inspiration. In a race against time, he tried to put as much as possible down on paper. In the last four months of his life alone, in 1940, he created 366 works. In a letter to his son, he himself described this state as follows: "Production is increasing at a very rapid pace, and I can no longer keep up with these children. They are springing forth." (Paul Klee in a letter to Felix Klee dated 29 December 1939, quoted from Klee, Felix (ed.): Paul Klee, Letters to the Family 1893-1940, Vol. II (1907-1940), Cologne 1979, p. 1295) During this period, Klee's pictorial themes are characterised by an ambivalence between his personal fate, the political situation in Germany and depictions of joie de vivre. In May 1940, he began his final journey to a sanatorium in Ticino, where he died on 29 June 1940.

Creative addiction in his final years

Paul Klee's oeuvre is characterised by a conflict between abstraction and figuration, music and painting, thought and feeling. This ambivalence makes him one of the central pioneers of modernism to this day. After studying at the Munich Academy and early stylistic experiments, Klee joined the artist group "Der Blaue Reiter" in 1911, where he formulated a new, spiritually imbued form of art in dialogue with Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc. His years of teaching at the Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau from 1921 to 1931 and at the Düsseldorf Academy from 1931 onwards influenced a generation of artists and established his status as one of the most influential teachers of modernism. In 1933, Klee was defamed as "degenerate" by the National Socialists and dismissed from his post. In the same year, he emigrated to Switzerland, where he began a late, intense creative phase in Bern.

In 1935, Klee fell ill with scleroderma, an incurable autoimmune disease. The consequences of the illness and exile plunged Klee into a deep depression. A brief period of inactivity in 1936, during which his strictly maintained list of works recorded just 25 pieces, was followed in 1937 by a seemingly explosive unleashing of creative energy and inspiration. In a race against time, he tried to put as much as possible down on paper. In the last four months of his life alone, in 1940, he created 366 works. In a letter to his son, he himself described this state as follows: "Production is increasing at a very rapid pace, and I can no longer keep up with these children. They are springing forth." (Paul Klee in a letter to Felix Klee dated 29 December 1939, quoted from Klee, Felix (ed.): Paul Klee, Letters to the Family 1893-1940, Vol. II (1907-1940), Cologne 1979, p. 1295) During this period, Klee's pictorial themes are characterised by an ambivalence between his personal fate, the political situation in Germany and depictions of joie de vivre. In May 1940, he began his final journey to a sanatorium in Ticino, where he died on 29 June 1940.

‘Festlich’ (Festive) – a declaration of love for life

The work presented here, "Festlich" (Festive), created in 1940, is one of Klee's last works before his death, with the work number 352 of 366. Uneven, bold black lines structure the surface like a framework for the colourful fields in bright yellow, earthy red, cool blue and delicate violet. A vibrant tension arises from the stark contrast between the black lines and the play of light in the colours, some of which are applied roughly. The coloured areas shine like stained-glass windows in an imaginary room, through which a soft light penetrates. The combination of reduced formal language and geometric imprecision creates a strong presence: the work combines austerity and lightness, order and chaos, thus striking a balance between construction and emotion. Alongside his figurative drawings, compositions such as this are among the most typical works of Klee's late period. (The most prominent example of this is the much-discussed work "Glass Facade", also from 1940)
The title "Festlich" (Festive) refers to an atmosphere that arises not from a narrative representation, but from the harmony of colour and form. At a time when Klee was physically weakened and surrounded by political and existential pressures, the title takes on a special resonance: the festive appears here as a spiritual attitude, as a final affirmation of life and art.
"Festlich" is a testament to Klee's unbroken creative energy in the face of death. It is a work of quiet monumentality that shows the late Klee in all his spiritual depth and formal mastery. This final phase brings together the artist's life's work: the search for order in chaos and for lightness in limitation.
Sophie Ballermann