Collection Online
Back

  • gemeinfrei
    Foto: Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf

Blick in die Ebene, 1932,270 (X 10)

Paul Klee

On view at K20

Information

Artist

Paul Klee

1879
Münchenbuchsee bei Bern, Schweiz

1940
Locarno-Muralto, Schweiz

Work data

Material/Technique

Oil on oil ground on muslin, mounted on Masonite

Dimensions

Image: 57 × 64.5 cm
Frame: 74.7 × 82.5 × 4.5 cm

Signature

Bez. u.r.: "Klee", verso: "1932 X 10 "Blick in die Ebene" Klee"

Accession Number

0030

Catalogue Raisonné

Cat. Rais. Nr. 5966

Acquisition year

1960

Provenance

From its creation in 1932, the painting “Blick in die Ebene” by Paul Klee remained the property of the artist, who sent it to Emmy Galka Scheyer in Los Angeles on consignment in 1933. Scheyer presumably left it to the Buchholz Gallery in New York on consignment for an unknown period after May 1941, which must have returned it to Scheyer before her death on December 13, 1945, as it was part of her estate from 1945 to 1950. After Paul Klee’s death in 1940, the painting became the property of Klee’s wife Lily. Due to an agreement negotiated in Washington on May 25, 1946, the Paul Klee estate of around 6,000 works was at risk of being liquidated in favor of the Allied countries upon the death of the artist’s widow. Therefore, on behalf of Lily Klee – and two days before her death – the Bernese businessman Rolf Bürgi sold the entire artistic estate to the Bernese businessman Hermann Rupf and the Bernese publisher Hans Meyer-Benteli on September 20, 1946. Together with Bürgi and the Bernese architect Werner Allenbach, the two founded the Klee-Gesellschaft on September 24, 1946 and transferred the Paul Klee estate into its possession. In 1950, on the basis of the “Washington Agreement” and in ignorance of the acquisition of Paul Klee’s estate by the Klee-Gesellschaft, the United States of America, represented by the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington D.C., confiscated Paul Klee’s consigned works from the estate of Emmy Galka Scheyer as enemy property. The works were liquidated on July 6, 1954 in a silent auction in San Francisco organized by the Office of Alien Property. There, G. David Thompson bought the work and it remained in his collection until it was sold to the Galerie Beyeler in Basel in 1960. The state of North Rhine-Westphalia subsequently purchased the painting “Blick in die Ebene” from Galerie Beyeler together with a further 87 works by Paul Klee. They formed the basis of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, which was founded in 1961.

Credit line

Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf

Exhibitions
  • Gegenleihgabe für: Paul Klee, Blick in das Fruchtland, 1932,189 (T 9), für die Ausstellung "Paul Klee - Im Zeichen der Teilung" in der Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, 4.1.-5.8.1995, Städtische Galerie im Städelschen Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main
  • Die Blaue Vier. Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Klee in der Neuen Welt, 4.12.1997-7.3.1998, Kunstmuseum Bern
  • Unser 20. Jahrhundert - Meisterwerke von Picasso bis Beuys, 14.7.-28.10.2000, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf
  • Paul Klee. Kleinode. Die Sammlung, 22.6.-25.8.2001, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf
  • Nach Ägypten! Die Reisen von Max Slevogt und Paul Klee, 5.9.2014-3.1.2015, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, K20 Grabbeplatz
  • 100 x Paul Klee. Geschichte der Bilder, 28.9.2012-20.4.2013, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, K21 Ständehaus
  • De L'Allemagne. De Friedrich à Beckmann, 27.3.-23.6.2013, Louvre, Hall Napoléon, Paris
  • Nach Ägypten! Die Reisen von Max Slevogt und Paul Klee, 29.4.-2.8.2014, Galerie Neue Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Albertinum
  • Paul Klee, 14.1.-30.4.2016, Moderna Museet, Stockholm
  • Paul Klee! Meisterwerke aus der Kunstsammlung NRW, 20.3.-18.7.2015, Kunsthalle Emden
  • Die Erfindung der Abstraktion. Kunstakademie Düsseldorf 1931 - 2016, 19.10.2016-28.1.2017, Akademie Galerie, Düsseldorf
  • museum global: Prolog: Paul Klee. Eine Sammlung auf Reisen, 12.10.2018-9.3.2019, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (K20 Grabbeplatz, Kleehalle)
  • Die Blaue Vier. Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Klee in der Neuen Welt, 27.3.-27.6.1998, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf
  • Opening the Space. Fragen der Gegenwart an Werke der Sammlung / Works from the Collection in Light of Current Issues, 26.3.-28.8.2021, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (K20 Grabbeplatz), Henkel Galerie
Tags
abstract Modern Art
Service

If you have any questions or comments about works in the collection, please send us an e-mail to
service [​at​] kunstsammlung.de

For image requests and questions about image rights, please contact
service [​at​] kunstsammlung.de

Further literature on the works in the collection can be found in our special library for art of the 20th- and 21st-centuries:

Werner Schmalenbach Library

Online Catalog

Links

Permalink
https://sammlung.kunstsammlung.de/en/works/236

Further works

of Paul Klee

Discover more works from the collection