Paul Klee

Twentieth Century Painters: The Sidney Janis Collection

By wilso952 October 6, 2012
Exhibitions, University Gallery

From the outset of the University Gallery program for the 1935-1936 academic year (the second year of its existence), the gallery’s focus on contemporary art was evidenced by the first exhibit that opened that season. The Minneapolis Tribune reported that the exhibit – literally titled – Twentieth Century Painters, consisted of seventeen original paintings valued at $70,000 from the personal collection of Sidney Janis of New York City. Artists represented in the October exhibit included Henri Rosseau, Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Piet Mondrian, and Arshile Gorky.

Cats_001_SidneyJanis_1935.jpgGallery curator Ruth Lawrence created a catalogue to provide explanatory material for the exhibit. Assistant to the President Malcolm Willey sent a copy of the catalogue to President Lotus Coffman, along with an accompanying note that promoted the profile of the exhibit in the infant gallery…

Malcolm Willey to President Coffman, October 25, 1935:

“I am attaching a catalog covering the exhibition now at the University Art Gallery. The catalog was written by Mrs. Lawrence. I do hope that during the showing of the Janis collection you and Mrs. Coffman will be able to visit the gallery. It is an exceedingly remarkable group of pictures and demonstrates better than I have ever seen it demonstrated, just how unbalanced art can sometimes become. It is, however, a very significant show and you will observe from the catalog that the paintings have hitherto been seen at relatively few places, but these important ones.”

A list of the artworks displayed in the exhibit was also published in the Minneapolis Tribune (click on the newspaper clipping from the gallery press books at left to view the article).

Decades after the exhibit, art collector Sidney Janis donated many of the works from his private collection to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. From MOMA’s online collection database, we can view images of a few of the paintings that were once featured in the University Gallery’s October 1935 exhibit:

SidneyJanis1.jpg

“Le Reve” (The Dream) – Henri Rosseau

“Nature Morte a la Guitare” (Glass, Guitar, and Bottle)” – Pablo Picasso

“Actor’s Mask,” “In the Grass,” – Paul Klee

 

Paul Klee, Little Tree

By wilso952 February 7, 2012
Exhibitions, University Gallery

From January 7 to February 8, 1960 the University Gallery exhibited paintings, drawings and prints by the artist Paul Klee from the Galka E. Scheyer Collection at the Pasadena Art Museum, California.

An invitation to the opening:

Web_Cats_083_WinterQuarterInvite_PaulKlee_1960.jpg Web_Cats_084_WinterQuarterInvite_PaulKlee2_1960.jpg

A photograph was found within the exhibition folder in Box 7 of the WAM collection:

Web_Klee.jpg

In the January 12, 1960 edition of the MN Daily, Thomas Olson reviews the exhibition in the article, “Klee’s Art is Sophisticated,”

“… There is a strong element of whimsy and design for design’s sake in his work, but the essential content of his prints, drawings and paintings is the nature of the world and man. In an exhibit of his work now at the University Gallery, Klee sees man as a victim of his environment (“Swamp-Water Sprite“) and his desires (“The Lover“), and by nature a vulgar, grotesque and foolish creature.

Even the artist’s rather sympathetic depiction of the human situation in “Tightrope Walker” shows man as somewhat of a clown, moving intrepidly onward simply because there is nowhere else to go….

… This savage portrayal of man is considerably softened by Klee’s great wit and charm and his exquisite handling of line, contrast and color. He shows us what we are in such a way that we can’t help laughing at ourselves.”

I, personally, can’t help laughing at the lonely little tree unassumingly part of Klee’s exhibition…

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