Hoffmanneske Szene (Hoffmannesque Scene), from: New European Graphics, Portfolio I: Masters of the State Bauhaus, Weimar

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Hoffmanneske Szene (Hoffmannesque Scene), from: New European Graphics, Portfolio I: Masters of the State Bauhaus, Weimar

Artist Paul Klee (Swiss, 1879-1940)

Publisher Müller & Co. Verlag

Printer Staatliches Bauhaus, Weimar

Date1921

Dimensions12 3/8 x 9 in.

MediumLithograph in color

ClassificationPrints

Credit LineWinthrop H. Perry Fund

Object number

1959.98

Not on View

Label TextPaul Klee's Creative Credo, published in 1920, begins: "Art does not reproduce the visible, but makes visible. The very nature of graphic art lures us to abstraction, readily and with reason. It gives the schematic fairytale quality of the imaginary and expresses it with great precision." In his art, Klee sought the "in-between world … that exists between the world our senses perceive." Incorporating ideas from Cubism and from the art of children and of the mentally ill, he created beguiling and magical scenes. This color lithograph, based closely on a 1921 watercolor by Klee, refers to the phantasmagoric stories of the German Romantic writer E.T.A. Hoffmann and to Jacques Offenbach's ironic opera based on the author’s works, The Tales of Hoffmann (1880).Published ReferencesSoby, J. T., The Prints of Paul Klee, no. 26.Exhibition HistoryToledo Museum of Art, Between the Wars, Sept. 5-Dec.31, 2008.

Toledo Museum of Art, Werner Pfeiffer Selects, Feb. 13-May 10, 2015.

Toledo Museum of Art, The Bauhaus Experiment: Art & Design from the Toledo Museum of Art, August 25, 2020-February 7, 2021.