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Paul Klee  1879-1940

Paul Klee A Young Lady's Adventure 1922
© DACS, 2002
A Young Lady's Adventure  1922
Abenteuer eines Fräuleins

Watercolour on paper
support: 625 x 480 mm frame: 686 x 510 x 20 mm
on paper, unique

Purchased 1946

N05659
Commentators have differed in their interpretation of this watercolour. The German critic Will Grohmann, for example, saw the figure as a 'fashionable lady, who is spite of her striking elegance is more or less helpless in face of the oppressive spirits'. In the Bauhaus where Klee taught in this period the work was known, he said, as 'The English Miss'. Others emphasise the erotic connotations of the imagery, and Klee's use of arrows as phallic symbols. For Christain Geelhaar the 'young lady's adventure' referred to in the title is sexual in nature.
 (From the display caption August 2004)