Dampfer und Segelbōte (Dredger and Sailboat)

1931

Paul Klee

Artist, Swiss, 1879 - 1940

A horizontally oriented sheet of paper is entirely painted with a patchwork of rectangular, upright dashes in vivid watercolor. The hulls and sails of boats are outlined in olive green, brown, or brick red. A thick-hulled boat is to the left, and a cluster of intersecting and nested sails are to the right. The colors of the dashes change within and outside of the drawn lines. The dashes across the water are cobalt and ultramarine blue, and across the sky, dashes are shades of pink, red, and purple. Washes of pale blue and yellow create a background. The artist signed the top left corner, “Klee.”
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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    watercolor on laid paper, on Klee's original mount

  • Credit Line

    Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

  • Dimensions

    image: 43.5 x 64 cm (17 1/8 x 25 3/16 in.)
    support: 48.5 x 67.3 cm (19 1/8 x 26 1/2 in.)

  • Accession

    1983.1.93

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Helfenstein 2000, no. 5588

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Galerie Beyeler, Basel; G. David Thompson; Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., New York, 23-24 March 1966, lot 50; Lock Galleries; Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, as of 1966.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1950

  • [exhibition at the Kunstmuseum, Basel]

1986

  • Gifts to the Nation: Selected Acquisitions from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1986, unnumbered checklist

2001

  • A Century of Drawing, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2001-2002, no. 59, as Dampfer und Segelbote (Steamship and Sailboats).

2016

  • In Celebration of Paul Mellon, NGA, 2016.

Bibliography

1998

  • Helfenstein, Josef, and Christian Rumelin. Paul Klee: Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. VI. Bern, 2000: 5588.

2001

  • A Century of Drawing. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2001-2002: no. 59.

Inscriptions

upper left of image in brown ink: Klee; lower left below image in graphite and brown ink: [Cl XII?]; in brown ink: 1931. T.3.; lower right in brown ink: Dampfer und Segelbote

Wikidata ID

Q64619054

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