Title: Siblings, 1930 (Paul Klee)

Inventory number: K-230

Dimensions/Media: 70.7 × 45.2 cm / watercolor and oil on chalk-primed canvas

Characteristics: signed on the front, lower right, “Klee”

Summary of Provenance

The painting *Siblings* by Paul Klee, dated 1930, remained in the artist’s possession until 1935. In December 1930, Paul Klee consigned the work to the Jewish art dealer Alfred Flechtheim, who attempted to sell it through his Berlin gallery. As a Jew, Alfred Flechtheim was among those persecuted by the Nazi regime after the Nazis came to power in 1933. He left Germany in May 1933 and fled via Switzerland and Paris to London, where he died on March 9, 1937, from complications of sepsis. Paul Klee emigrated to Bern, Switzerland, in 1933 and, on October 24, signed a general agency agreement with the German-French gallery owner Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (1884–1979), owner of the Galerie Simon in Paris. Klee then demanded that his previous gallery owners, including Flechtheim, return the works held on consignment and forward them to the Galerie Simon in Paris. There, the works are documented in an exhibition beginning on June 12, 1934. Exactly when the painting was shipped to Kahnweiler in Paris is unknown due to a lack of sources. However, since the painting was on consignment with Flechtheim—and thus remained the property of Klee—and was transported to Paris at his request, it does not constitute property lost as a result of Nazi persecution. A year later, from June 13 to 30, 1935, *The Siblings* was featured in an exhibition on the work of Paul Klee at the Mayor Gallery in London. There, the British painter Roland Algernon Penrose (1900–1984) acquired the painting. The next known owner of the work was the artist and photographer Lee Miller (1907–1977), in whose possession the *Siblings* remained from around 1948 to 1965. From 1965 to 1983, the painting was in the family collection of the collector George David Thompson. The estate of Helene S. Thompson was sold at Sotheby’s New York on May 18, 1983, and the siblings were purchased at auction by the Jan Kruieger & Cie. gallery in Geneva. There, Marshall Cagan of New York purchased the painting in 1985. On June 24, 1996, the siblings were auctioned again at Sotheby’s, this time in London, and acquired by Heidi Horten.

+ PROVENANCE