
Paul Klee Twittering Machine (Die Zwitscher-Maschine) 1922
- Medium
- Oil transfer drawing, watercolor, and ink on paper with gouache and ink borders on board
- Dimensions
- 25 1/4 x 19" (64.1 x 48.3 cm)
- Credit
- Purchase
- Object number
- 564.1939
- Copyright
- © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
- Department
- Drawings and Prints
- Paul Klee has 146 works online.
- There are 18,042 drawings online.
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View the German Expressionism: Works from the Collection project
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Installation views
We have identified these works in the following photos from our exhibition history.
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On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century
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On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century
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519: Bauhaus and Beyond
Oct 24, 2021–Jun 13, 2024
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519: Bauhaus and Beyond
Oct 24, 2021–Jun 13, 2024
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This work is included in the Provenance Research Project, which investigates the ownership history of works in MoMA's collection.
Acquired from the artist by the Nationalgalerie, Berlin, 1923 [1]; removed as “degenerate art” by the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, 1937 [2]; on consignment to Karl Buchholz, Berlin, 1939; to Buchholz Gallery (Curt Valentin), New York; acquired by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, October 14,1939 [3].
[1] Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Kunstmuseum Bern, eds. Paul Klee: catalogue raisonné. Bern: Benteli and New York: Thames and Hudson, vol. 3 (1999), no. 2975. One of four works the Nationalgalerie acquired from the artist for 40 million M during the inflation of 1923 (see Annegret Janda and Jörn Grabowski, eds., Kunst in Deutschland 1905-1937: Die verlorene Sammlung der Nationalgalerie im ehemaligen Kronprinzenpalais, exh. cat. Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 1992, no. 229). Included in the exhibition Paul Klee, Nationalgalerie, Kronprinzenpalais, Berlin, February 1923. On loan from the Nationalgalerie to the Museum of Modern Art, New York for the exhibition German Painting and Sculpture, March 13 - April 26, 1931 (no. 42). On view at the Kronprinzenpalais of the Nationalgalerie, Berlin until 1933 (ibid.). Included in the exhibition Der Bolschewismus - große antibolschewistische Schau, Deutsches Museum, Munich, November 7, 1936-January 31, 1937 (see Charles Werner Haxthausen, "A 'Degenerate' Abroad: Klee's Reception in America, 1937-1940," Josef Helfenstein and Elizabeth Hutton Turner, eds., Klee and America, exh. cat. New York: Neue Galerie, 2006, pp. 159-162; Anja Tiedemann, "Auf dem Weg in ein freies Land. Paul Klees Vokaltuch der Kammersängerin Rosa Silber," Uwe Fleckner, ed., Das verfemte Meisterwerk, Berlin: Akademieverlag, 2009, pp. 177-179).
[2] Not on "Harry Fischer list." Included in the exhibition Degenerate Art, Hofgarten-Arkaden, Munich, July 19-November 30, 1937 and other venues (Berlin, Leipzig, Düsseldorf, Salzburg, Hamburg, Stettin, Weimar).
[3] Included shortly thereafter in the exhibition Contemporary German Art, November 1-December 9, 1939, Institute of Modern Art, Boston.
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