Inscription: Signed and inscribed (lower right below plate mark, in graphite): Klee; (lower left, in graphite): 37/125; inscribed (verso, in graphite): Th G; 740 [encircled]
member, Swiss Graphic Society (from 1929; received as annual membership gift); private collection, Zürich (until 1996; sale, Hauswedell & Nolte, Hamburg, November 26, 1996, no. 232, sold to Maass); [Kunsthandel Jörg Maass, Berlin, 1996–97; sold in 1997 to MMA]
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Paul Klee: Figures and Faces," August 23–November 16, 1997, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Klee's Line," March 18–July 9, 2000, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Klee Figures," October 5, 2001–March 10, 2002, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Late Klee," October 18, 2012–March 31, 2013, no catalogue.
Will Grohmann. Paul Klee: Handzeichungen 1921–1930. Potsdam, 1934, p. 38 (unknown edition).
James Thrall Soby. The Prints of Paul Klee. New York, 1945, unpaginated, pl. 38 (unknown edition), as "Rechnender Greis (Old Man Figuring)"; illustrates edition in the collection of Alexander Calder, Roxbury.
Gualtieri di San Lazzaro. Klee: A Study of His Life and Work. New York, 1957, p. 294, ill. p. 121 (unknown edition), as "Rechnender Greis (Old Man Calculating)".
Jürg Spiller, ed. Paul Klee: The Thinking Eye. The Notebooks of Paul Klee. New York, 1961, pp. 260, 526, ill. p. 236 (unknown edition) [German ed., Basel, 1956], as "Old Man Reckoning".
Bates Lowry. The Visual Experience: An Introduction to Art. New York, [1961], pp. 44–45, 267, fig. 27 (not this edition), calls it "Old Man Figuring".
Eberhard W. Kornfeld. Verzeichnis des graphischen Werkes von Paul Klee. Bern, 1963, unpaginated, no. 104b, ill., notes that this print was created in an edition of 130, with 5 reserved for the artist, and 125 intended as the annual membership gift for the Swiss Graphic Society.
Jürg Spiller, ed. Paul Klee. Notebooks, Volume 2: The Nature of Nature. New York, 1973, p. 181 [German ed., Basel, 1970].
Charles W. Haxthausen in Betsy G. Fryberger. In Celebration of Paul Klee, 1879–1940: Fifty Prints. Exh. cat., Stanford University Museum of Art. Stanford, 1979, p. 16 (not this edition).
Betsy G. Fryberger. In Celebration of Paul Klee, 1879–1940: Fifty Prints. Exh. cat., Stanford University Museum of Art. Stanford, 1979, pp. 92–93, no. 48, ill. (not this edition), calls it "Old Man Reckoning"; notes that Klee's trip to Egypt in January 1929 influenced compositions such as this one, with the horizontal bands relating to the "layering of different civilizations" and the "austere, sun-struck desert terrain".
Felix Klee inThe Graphic Legacy of Paul Klee: An Exhibition of Klee's Prints. Exh. cat., Bard College. Annandale-on-Hudson, 1983, p. 20, comments that some members of the Swiss Graphic Society disliked it so much that they destroyed their editions; notes that the print closely resembles its preliminary drawing (present location unknown; Helfenstein and Rümelin no. 4816).
Jim Jordan inThe Graphic Legacy of Paul Klee: An Exhibition of Klee's Prints. Exh. cat., Bard College. Annandale-on-Hudson, 1983, pp. 39, 118, no. 85, ill. p. 121 (not this edition), calls it "Old Men [sic] Figuring" in the text and "Old Man Reckoning" in the caption.
Donna Graves. Paul Klee: Figurative Graphics from the Djerassi Collection. Exh. cat., San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. San Francisco, 1986, pp. 18, 22, 24, no. 29, ill. front cover (not this edition), calls it "Old Man Reckoning".
Mark Roskill. Klee, Kandinsky, and the Thought of Their Time: A Critical Perspective. Urbana, 1992, pp. 150–51 n. 74, calls it "Rechnender Greis (Old Man Calculating)".
Christoph Wagner inPaul Klee: Reisen in den Süden. "Reisefieber praecisiert". Ed. Uta Gerlach-Laxner and Ellen Schwinzer. Exh. cat., Gustav-Lübcke-Museum. Ostfildern, 1997, pp. 77–78, 83, fig. 5 (not this edition).
Rudolf Velhagen inIm Auftrag: Druckgraphik 1918 bis 1998 für die Schweizerische Graphische Gesellschaft von Paul Klee, Germaine Richier, Alberto Giacometti, Miriam Cahn u.a. Exh. cat., Galerie Kornfeld, Bern. Zürich, 1998, p. 24, fig. 29 and ill. front cover (not this edition).
Aya Soika. "Notes: Swiss Graphic Society." Print Quarterly 16 (December 1999), p. 381, fig. 209 (not this edition), calls it "Rechnender Greis (Calculating Old Man)"; quotes one dissatisfied member of the Swiss Graphic Society who returned their edition of this print because it "'doesn't convey anything to me—I would simply throw it in the bin—I take the liberty to return it to your disposal'".
Josef Helfenstein and Christian Rümelin, ed. Paul Klee: Catalogue Raisonné. Ed. Paul Klee Foundation, Museum of Fine Arts, Berne. Vol. 5, 1927–1930. New York, 2001, pp. 287, 325, no. 4855, ill. (not this edition).
Eva Korazija. Schweizerische Künstlergraphik im 20.Jahrhundert. Ed. Graphische Sammlun der ETH Zurich. Basel, 2005, pp. 20, 214, fig. 7 (not this edition).
Paul Klee (German (born Switzerland), Münchenbuchsee 1879–1940 Muralto-Locarno)
1921
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