{
"data": {
"id": 156571,
"accession_number": "1992.278",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "God of War, 1937. Paul Klee (German, 1879\u20131940). Gouache and tempera; 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.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Lockwood Thompson, 1992.278",
"current_location": null,
"title": "God of War",
"creation_date": "1937",
"creation_date_earliest": 1937,
"creation_date_latest": 1937,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"Germany, 20th century"
],
"technique": "Gouache and tempera",
"support_materials": [
{
"description": "newspaper tipped onto cream(3) wove paper (artist's mount)",
"watermarks": []
}
],
"department": "Drawings",
"collection": "DR - German",
"type": "Drawing",
"measurements": "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.)",
"dimensions": {
"sheet": {
"height": 0.352,
"height_inch": 13,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.875,
"width": 0.29,
"width_inch": 11,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.4375
},
"secondary support": {
"height": 0.646,
"height_inch": 25,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.4375,
"width": 0.493,
"width_inch": 19,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.4375
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "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]\r\n",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 311552,
"title": "Selected Acquisitions",
"description": "Selected Acquisitions. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 9-April 11, 1993).",
"opening_date": "1993-02-09T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 192019,
"title": "Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"description": "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).",
"opening_date": "2000-08-27T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 691553,
"title": "Paul Klee: Other Possible Worlds",
"description": "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/.",
"opening_date": "2026-03-20T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Exhibition of Expressionism and Related Movements. Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (January 25 - February 28, 1939).",
"opening_date": "1939-01-25T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Paul Klee: Memorial Exhibition. Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA (1941); Arts Club of Chicago (1940); Portland Art Museum, Oregon (1941); San Francisco Museum of Art (April 14 - May 5, 1941); Stendahl Art Galleries, Los Angeles (May 8 - May 18, 1941); City Art Museum, St. Louis (1941); Wellesley College, MA (1941); Museum of Modern Art, New York (1941).",
"opening_date": "1941-04-14T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Paul Klee. Buchholz Gallery/Willard Gallery, New York (October 9 - November 2, 1940).",
"opening_date": "1940-10-09T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Paul Klee: Oeuvres R\u00e9centes. Galerie Simon, Paris (January 24 - February 5, 1938).",
"opening_date": "1938-01-24T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "(Galerie Jeanne Bucher-Myrbor, Paris, sold to Lockwood Thompson)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "September 14, 1938",
"sortorder": null
},
{
"description": "Lockwood Thompson [1901-1992], Cleveland, OH, bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1938-1992",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1992-",
"sortorder": 3
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [
"92.1939"
],
"did_you_know": "Shortly before this drawing was made, Paul Klee was exiled from Germany to his native Switzerland due to the political turmoil that led to World War II.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "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.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79946087"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1992.278-god-of-war"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Helfenstein, Josef and Christian R\u00fcmelin. Paul Klee: Catalogue Raisonn\u00e9. Bern: Kunstmuseum Bern, 1998-2004",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: vol. 7, no. 6961",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Paul Klee: Oeuvres R\u00e9centes. Exh. Cat. Paris: Galerie Simon, 1938.
",
"page_number": "Mentioned: no. 34",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Paul Klee. Exh. Cat. New York: Buchholz Gallery/Willard Gallery, 1940.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: no. 86",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Vishny, Mich\u00e8le. \"Paul Klee and War: A Stance of Aloofness.\" Gazette des Beaux-Arts 92 (December 1978): 233-243",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 241",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Kersten, Wolfgang. Paul Klee, \u00dcbermut: Allegorie der k\u00fcnstlerischen Existenz. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1990.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: pp. 60-61; Reproduced: p. 63",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Kersten, Wolfgang and Osamu Okuda. Paul Klee: Im Zeichen der Teilung. Exh. Cat. D\u00fcsseldorf: Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, 1995.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: pp. 214-215",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Francis, Henry S. \"Exhibition of Expressionism and Related Movements.\" Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 26, no. 2 (February 1939): 19.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 19",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "DeLamater, Peg. \"Klee and India: Krishna Themes in the Art of Paul Klee.\" PhD diss., University of Texas at Austin, 1991.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 245",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "\"The Year in Review for 1992.\" Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 80, no. 2 (February 1993): 39-72.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 72, no. 230; Reproduced: p. 62",
"url": "https://www.jstor.org/stable/25161388"
},
{
"citation": "DeGrazia, Diane, and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Exh. Cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2000.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 11, pp. 260-261, 298; Reproduced: p. 261",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Uhde-Stahl, Brigitte. Paul Klees geheime Symbolik. Berlin : Gebr. Mann Verlag, [2018]",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 264; mentioned: pp. 335-337",
"url": null
}
],
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"updated_at": "2026-07-30 13:45:46.206000"
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