Cacti

Around 1912 Paul Klee was in his early thirties, living in Munich with his wife Lily, a pianist, and their small son Felix. The household ran in a way that was unusual for the time. Lily earned the family's money by giving piano lessons, while Klee kept house, cooked, looked after the boy and made his art at home. This small picture of cacti in pots, indoor plants painted in oil on a piece of cardboard about half a metre tall, belongs to that domestic world. It stayed in the family for a long time. After Klee's death it passed by inheritance to his sister Mathilde, then to a private owner, and in 1961 the Lenbachhaus bought it at an auction in Bern.