Artwork
Interieur mit der Uhr (Interior with the Clock)
Interieur mit der Uhr (Interior with the Clock) is a watercolor drawing by Paul Klee. It dates from 1913 and is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art.
- Inscription
- Inscribed:upper left in black ink: Klee.; lower left on mount in black ink: 1913 147 Interieur mit der Uhr [all underlined]; lower left on mount in graphite: 195 x 17 Vue; lower right on mount in graphite: 205 [5 in superscript] x 18 / 12 x 12
About this work
Overview
Created in 1913, Paul Klee’s Interieur mit der Uhr is a watercolor drawing on paper that has been mounted on cardboard for support. The composition presents a simplified interior space rendered with flat planes of color, where the walls, floor, and furnishings are reduced to basic shapes and hues, giving the scene a schematic, almost diagrammatic quality.
Subject & Meaning
The work depicts a modest room whose walls are washed in a pale yellow and whose floor shifts between muted blues and greens. A red circular element on the left wall suggests a clock or picture, while the furniture, tables and chairs, appear in blocky pink, purple, and white forms. The overall effect is dreamlike, emphasizing mood over realistic representation.
Technique & Style
Klee employed watercolor’s translucent qualities, allowing pigments to bleed and merge with soft edges. His brushwork is loose and rapid, resembling scribbles that convey movement rather than precise detail. The abstracted forms and flattened color fields reflect his engagement with expressionist, cubist, and nascent surrealist tendencies, merging them into a distinctive visual language.
History & Provenance
The drawing was produced during Klee’s early period, shortly before his appointment at the Bauhaus. While specific ownership records for this piece are limited, it remains part of the artist’s extensive output that illustrates his experimental approach to drawing and his exploration of color theory in the years leading up to his teaching career.
Context
At the time of its creation, Klee was navigating several avant‑garde currents in Europe. His exposure to expressionism’s emotive color, cubism’s fragmented perspective, and the emerging surrealist interest in the unconscious informed the composition’s ambiguous space and symbolic elements, positioning the work within a broader shift toward abstraction.
Own this work as a print
Artist & collection
Artist
Paul Klee (German:; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist.
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