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Angel Applicant

Paul Klee German, born Switzerland
1939
Not on view
It seems doubtful that this Angel Applicant, resembling the offspring of a bulldog and a Halloween mask, will ever reach heaven. In 1939, Klee composed twenty-nine works that feature angels, having in earlier years only sporadically depicted them. His angels were not the celestial kind but hybrid creatures beset with human foibles and whims. Klee's angels are "forgetful, "still female, "ugly," incomplete," or "poor"—as the titles he gave these pictures indicate.

Suffering from an incurable illness and sensing himself hovering between life and death, Klee possibly felt a kinship with these outsiders. In this work, he covered a sheet of newspaper with black gouache on which he then drew the outlines of the figure and of the crescent moon with a thick, soft graphite pencil. Then he filled in these forms with a thin white wash. It is the black ground peeking through the white pigment that gives this creature its ghostly shimmer.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Angel Applicant
  • Artist: Paul Klee (German (born Switzerland), Münchenbuchsee 1879–1940 Muralto-Locarno)
  • Date: 1939
  • Medium: Gouache, brush and black ink, and graphite on paper mounted on board
  • Dimensions: 25 3/4 × 17 1/2 in. (65.4 × 44.5 cm)
  • Classification: Drawings
  • Credit Line: The Berggruen Klee Collection, 1984
  • Object Number: 1984.315.60
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

More Artwork

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The Man Under the Pear Tree, Paul Klee German, born Switzerland, Watercolor and transferred printing ink on paper, bordered with metallic foil, mounted on paperboard
The Man Under the Pear Tree
Paul Klee
1921
Armor, Steel, leather, German, possibly Lower Saxony
Armor
German, possibly Lower Saxony
ca. 1540–50 and later
Sketchbook of Landscape and Animal Subjects, Thomas Hewes Hinckley American, Drawings in graphite, ink (?) washes, gouache, and sgraffito on green, tan, and buff-colored wove paper, bound in a cloth cover, American
Sketchbook of Landscape and Animal Subjects
Thomas Hewes Hinckley
1860–64
Pädagogisches Skizzenbuch, Paul Klee German, born Switzerland
Pädagogisches Skizzenbuch
Author Paul Klee
Publisher Albert Langen Verlag
1925
Armor, Steel, leather, German, possibly Lower Saxony
Armor
German, possibly Lower Saxony
ca. 1540–50 and later

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