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God of War
by Paul Klee
About the Artwork
This drawing belongs to a series of large format works with bold colors, thick painterly lines, and pictograph formations that Paul Klee created late in his career. The period during which they were made was marked by anxiety for the artist, as political turmoil grew in Europe during the 1930s. To suggest this experience, Klee painted on a sheet of newspaper, allowing the printed text to intermingle with his own sign-like marks. The article visible here, for example, discusses the Spanish civil war. The figures that dominate the work more subtly suggest this crisis, including a large face with heavy eyelids and an enigmatic smile depicted in layers of yellow paint and several dancing or running figures in the foreground delineated by areas left unpainted.
Inscriptions
signed, upper left, in paint: Klee; secondary support, by artist, lower center, in brown ink: 1937 K. 5. Kriegs Gott ["37 K. 5. Kriegs Gott" underlined in graphite]; lower center, in graphite: III; verso of secondary support, upper left, in graphite: Nos 39 31 / 35 x 29 [all circled]; upper left, on separately applied label: [upper portion cropped] / 1937 [inscribed in blue ink] No [printed in black ink] 0843 [stamped in blue ink] / Paul Klee / Dieu de la Guerre / 35 x 29 [last three lines inscribed in blue ink] / Photo No [printed in black ink]
Provenance
September 14, 1938: (Galerie Jeanne Bucher-Myrbor, Paris, sold to Lockwood Thompson) 1938-1992: Lockwood Thompson [1901-1992], Cleveland, OH, bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH 1992-: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
Selected Acquisitions. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 9-April 11, 1993). Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002). Paul Klee: Other Possible Worlds. The Jewish Museum, New York, NY (organizer) (March 20-July 26, 2026) https://thejewishmuseum.org/exhibitions/paul-klee-other-possible-worlds/.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Paul Klee (German, 1879–1940)
- Date
- 1937
- Medium
- Gouache and tempera
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 35.2 x 29 cm (13 7/8 x 11 7/16 in.); Secondary Support: 64.6 x 49.3 cm (25 7/16 x 19 7/16 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Bequest of Lockwood Thompson
- Accession no.
- 1992.278
More by Paul Klee in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00011014
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