Swamp Legend
1919 · Oil on cardboard · Lenbachhaus, Munich
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About this work
- Artist
- Paul Klee (1879–1940)
- Year
- 1919
- Medium
- Oil on cardboard
- Original size
- 47 × 40.8 cm
- Collection
- Lenbachhaus, Munich
- Movement
- Expressionism
A murky landscape of green, brown and white is broken into slanting planes, with crosses, small fir trees, a house, a few pale green discs and a looming head-like form scattered through it; at lower left a tiny stick figure seems to stand in the marsh. Sulphurous greens set against violet-brown give it a strange, dreamlike light. Klee painted it on cardboard in Munich in 1919, one of a series of cosmic landscapes from 1917 to 1919 in which, as he put it in his diaries, landscape became a setting for moods of the soul. Paul and Sophie Küppers bought it from his studio and lent it to the museum in Hanover, where it was confiscated in 1937 and shown in the Nazi Degenerate Art exhibition. The Lenbachhaus in Munich acquired it in 1982, and in 2017 the city reached an agreement over its ownership with the heirs of Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers.
This exhibition-poster edition shows the whole work beneath original typography set in-house. The original is in the public domain.
Where it works
A murky marsh of green, brown and white planes with crosses and small fir trees, for a study, library or hallway at 16×24 in black. A dark green, olive or warm grey wall; it pairs with Terraced Garden.
Style, size & framing detail
- Style
- Exhibition poster of a Expressionism painting
- Era
- 20th century (1919)
- Orientation
- Portrait
- Palette
- cream & beige
- Mood
- classic
- Rooms
- hallway or entryway, study or library, living room, dining room, dorm room
- Good gift for
- housewarming, art lovers
Size. We'd hang this one at 16×24. Prints at 12×18, 16×24, 24×36 in — 12×18 for a shelf, desk or a gallery-wall grid; 16×24 above a desk, console or in a hallway; 24×36 as the statement piece above a sofa or bed.
Framing. Exhibition posters sit best in a slim black frame with no mat — the typeset margin is the mat.
Pairing. Pairs as a set of three with other famous painting prints (10% off three or more).
Details & materials
Shipping & returns
Is this the whole painting, or a crop?
Is Swamp Legend in the public domain?
What is it printed on?
When was Swamp Legend painted, and in what medium?
What size works above a sofa or bed?
About this design
The Madten promise
A fine-art print
The same artwork as a clean fine-art print — the image shown large with a minimal caption.
