Autour du poisson

Klee painted this in 1926, the year the Bauhaus moved into its new building in Dessau and he moved with it, and the picture went to the modern gallery in Dresden. In 1937 the Nazi state went through German public museums and took out what it called degenerate art. More than 130 works by Klee came off the walls, this one among them, and it was put into the official exhibitions of degenerate art before being sold abroad for foreign currency. The Museum of Modern Art bought it in 1939, and its director, Alfred Barr, said the one good thing about such an exile was the enrichment of countries where cultural freedom still existed. The fish lies on a garnished platter, circled by a cross, a full moon and a crescent, an exclamation mark and a small red flag on a fork.