Paul Klee
Traveling Circus
1936
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Paul Klee
Traveling Circus
1936
Physical Qualities
Mixed media on canvas, 25 1/2 x 19 3/4 in. (64.8 x 50.2 cm.)
Credit Line
Bequest of Saidie A. May
Object Number
1951.317
In Klee’s whimsical Traveling Circus, a one-eyed clown wearing a sombrero, a female acrobat, and a donkey appear before a circus tent with pennants flying. The artist uses subtle colors and a stippled technique to create this nocturnal scene. It is hard to reconcile the childlike playfulness of the drawing with the political events of 1937. During that year, Nazis seized 102 of Klee’s works from museums and collections throughout Germany, and included seventeen of these works in the Degenerate Art exhibition at the Haus der Kunst in Munich. Perhaps Traveling Circus alludes to the artist’s own unsettled situation, as he had been forced to leave Germany and was living in Swiss exile at the time of its creation.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by bequest 1951; The Baltimore Museum of Art on extended loan, 1941-1951; Saidie A. May, by purchase 1940; from Buchholz Gallery/Curt Valentin, New York, by purchase; from the artist through Gallerie Simon, Paris
Klee and America
A Circus Family: Picasso to Léger
The Renoir Returns
Cone Wing Rotations 2020
Northwest Cone Rotations 2021
Northwest Cone Rotations 2022
A Century of Baltimore Collecting 1840-1940
Sylvia Shipley, "Travelling Circus," Baltimore Museum of Art News, April 1945, p. 4-6, ill.
The Baltimore Museum of Art News, “Catalogue of the Saidie A. May Collection of Modern Paintings and Sculpture,” March, 1950, cat. 57, p. 16, ill. p.13.
Will Grohmann, "Paul Klee," NY: Harry N. Abrams, 1954, p. 293, ill. p. 325.
The Baltimore Museum of Art, "A Picture Book," 1955, ill. p. 73.
Zauho PRess, ed., "Klee, L'Art Moderne du Monde," Tokyo: Shueisha, 1971, vol. 13, ill. p. 50.
Thomas H. Messer, "Paul Klee at The Baltimore Museum of art," "Annual IV: Studies in Honor of Gertrude Rosenthal, Part Two," Baltimore Museum of Art, 1972, p. 39, ill. p. 70.
J. H. Cone, "Saidie A. May Collection, " "Baltimore Museum of Art Record," 3:1, 1972, p. 53.
Guy Hubard, "Art in Action," San Diego: Coronado, 1986.
Josef Helfenstein and Elizabeth Hutton Turner, ed. "Klee and America." Ostfilfern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2006, 141, ill.
Susan Helen Adler, "Saidie May Pioneer of Early 20th Century Collecting" Baltimore: Stonehouse Design, 2008, p. 212.
Rosenthal, Gertrude, ed. From El Greco to Pollock: Early and Late Works by European and American Artists. Baltimore, MD: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1968, pp. 141, ill.
