March 17 — July 9, 2000
Lila Acheson Wallace Wing, mezzanine
The Metropolitan Museum's series of thematic installations devoted to the art of Paul Klee (1879 — 1940) continues with Klee's Line, on view March 17 through July 9, 2000. The selection of 21 works explores Klee's varied use of line, which evolved over the years from exact naturalism to spidery playfulness to thick contours. In addition, Klee used different types of line for different subjects.
In 1893, when he was thirteen, Klee carefully rendered in precise perspective the small pencil drawing of the Junkerngasse in Bern, one of his native city's oldest residential streets. Three later pen and ink drawings of the early 1920s are more characteristic of Klee's mature expression. Each is completely linear. The first, Drawing Knotted in the Manner of a Net (1920), seems composed of irregularly knotted threads of yarn; the second, Rider Unhorsed and Bewitched (1920), suggests the parallel strands of a spider's web; and the third, The Last Adventure of the Knight Errant (1922), evokes musical symbols to accompany the comic tragedy of an errant knight.
In contrast are three later drawings of the 1920s. The screen in the watercolor Structural I (1924) might be strung out of white latticework. The three lady musicians in Memory of an All-Girl Band (1925) are outlined in the tiniest dots, perhaps to correspond with the syncopated rhythm of their music. The hobbling stick figures in Statuettes of Disabled War Heroes (1927) seem fashioned from thin black wire.
At the end of his life, Klee favored heavy black lines. Forming the thick-stemmed black pictographs in the upbeat Comedians' Handbill (1938), they convey energy — and sadness — in Girl in Mourning (1939).
In addition to the eighteen drawings from the Berggruen Klee Collection, three recent acquisitions are included in the exhibition: Klee's first etching, an ex libris (1901), one of his last etchings, Old Man Counting (1929), and a lithograph, Bird Comedy (1918), all three acquired through the gift of Dave and Reba Williams. The American sculptor Alexander Calder owned another impression of the etching Old Man Counting.
The selection of works has been made by Sabine Rewald, Associate Curator in the Metropolitan's Department of Modern Art.
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April 5, 2000
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