Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Paris (until 1938)
Karl Nierendorf, Berlin and New York (from 1938)
Mrs. Lydia Winston Malbin (acquired from the above in 1944)
By descent from the above to the present owner

Cambridge, Germanic Museum, Harvard University, Paul Klee, 1940
Cincinnati Art Museum, Paintings by Paul Klee and Mobiles and Stabiles by Alexander Calder, 1942 
Michigan, Cranbrook Art Academy, Winston Collection, 1951, no. 16, illustrated
Detroit Institute of Art; Richmond, Virginia Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Art; Milwaukee Art Institute; Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, Collecting Modern Art, 1957-1958, no. 29
Detroit Institute of Art, Selections from the Lydia and Harry L Winston Collection, 1972 (extended loan)
New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Futurism: A Modern Focus; the Lydia and Harry Lewis Winston Collection, Dr. and Mrs. Barnett Malbin, 1973, no. 52, illustrated

Paul Klee Foundation, ed., Paul Klee Catalogue Raisonné 1934-1938, vol. 7, Bern, 2003, no. 6818, illustrated p. 169 

Beginning in 1932, Klee met several personal hardships which were to affect his arti♎stic output. He had long feared the rise of the Nazi regime, and by 1933, having been deemed a “degenerate” artist, he lost his teaching position and sought refuge in his native Switzerland.  In 1935, Klee was diagnosed with scleroderma, a tissue disease.  The trauma associated with the diagnosis was the principal catalyst that marked a stylistic shift in his approach to his work.

Discussing Klee’s work from this trying time, Andrew Kagan writes, “The heavy, brush-drawn line now existed as a potential new force. To realize that potential, Klee needed to invent new formats and applications.  To the extent that he was able to ponder artistic problems during the difficult years 1933-1936, what must have most concerned him was how to formulate a new type of linear art to assume the place that color had formerly occupied in his ambitions” (Andrew Kagan, “Klee’s Development,” Paul Klee at the Guggenheim Museum,. (exhibition catalogue), New York, 1993, p. 45).  The present work illustrates Klee’s interest in the strength of line over color. The broad, sure line takes precedence over the muted palette, although the work maintains a patc🍃hwork like background of color, reminiscent of earlier works by the artist.

This work was acquired by Lydia Winston Malbin and her first husband, Harry Winston, as they began to acquire works for their collection of modern art.  As with many informed collectors of this period, the Winstons sought the sage advice of Alfred Barr, Jr., the first director of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.  Barr, whose admiration for Klee was well-known, encouraged the Winstons to acquire Geschmiedetes Stilleben (Forged Still Life).  In the introduction to the Paul Klee exhibition held at the Museum of Modern Art and which traveled to seven other venues, Barr wrote, “Nothing is more astonishing to the student of Klee than his extraordinary variety.  Not even Picasso approaches him in sheer inventiveness.  In quality of imagination also he can hold his own with Picasso; but Picasso of course is incomparably more powerful.  Picasso’s pictures often roar or stamp or pound; Klee’s whisper a soliloquy- lyric, intimate incalculably sensitive” (Alfred H. Barr, Jr., introduction to Paul Klee, (exhi💮bition catalogue), New York, ꦛMuseum of Modern Art, 1941, p. 7).