Rare Vintage 1955 Klee "Clown" Offset Lithograph

A beautiful vintage offset lithograph of Clown (1929) 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: 7" x 9.5" 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.

CLOWN 1929

PANEL, OIL WITH CHALK; 26¾ × 19⅝"

Mrs. Gertrude Lenart, New York

ONE OF KLEE'S GREATEST pictorial achievements. It reminds us of Picasso, whom Klee revered, and whose paintings always fascinated him. When Picasso visited him in Bern and expressed admiration for his works, Klee (who was already ill at that time) was gratified.

The oval face divided into sections by a zigzag, the green neck, the clown's costume, the little green hat pushed to one side, the green button on the right shoulder - all these things are as though painted in a felicitous moment, and yet they are balanced down to the last detail. Similarly balanced are the pink and the brown of the face with the green of the neck, the button, and the hat on the brick-colored background. This clown, with his red eye and the receding nose, has a quixotic quality; how this comes about remains a mystery. It is the effect of imponderables - the slit of his right eye, the regular, blue mouth, the rigid neck, the provocative, hot background which seems to encourage absurd actions. Daumier attempts to render the psychol ogy of Don Quixote as conceived by Cervantes; Klee gives us a figure which reminds us equally of Aristophanes and of Cervantes, but in fact it is a completely new creation.