Rare Vintage 1955 Klee "City on Two Hills" Offset Lithograph

A beautiful vintage offset lithograph of City on Two Hills (1927) by Paul Klee. This lithograph is printed on one side only and hand tipped-in on a sheet of heavy paper.     

Information regarding the original painting can be found by lifting the plate. 

Image: 9.4" x 6.5" tipped in on heavy paper.

Paul Klee (1879-1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism.

CITY ON TWO HILLS 1927

COLORED SHEET, WATER COLOR AND PEN DRAWING; 10 x 14¼"

Max Fischer, Stuttgart, Germany

THIS PICTURE IS developed from a continuous line combined with other intersecting lines. Klee begins his figuration at one point and draws a series of irregular right angles without stopping. Then, occasionally he begins another continuous line of the same sort. The areas produced by the intersections are colored and organized, giving rise to works very different in character — pieces such as Fool in a Trance (1927), or landscapes such as Chosen Site and this City on Two Hills. Characteristically Klee can derive both figures and landscapes from the same pattern with equal ease. The small Fool in a Trance is like a choreographic design; the City on Two Hills like an architectural drawing. The former suggests movement and rhythm, the latter with the squares and polygons reminiscent of houses, suggests planning and construction. We almost think that we recognize the city represented here with its little and big buildings and towers. The summer of 1927 Klee spent in Corsica, and this picture may represent a Corsican town. The colors would justify such a hypothesis- the sky is leaden, the beach is lavender, the houses are pale green and light ocher. The artistic design, the formal invention, comes first, but they never run into the void, they always find a response in reality, as though the instinct of the artist's hand and the instinct of nature were only waiting to meet each other.