Tightrope Walker

1923

Tightrope Walker, 1923. Paul Klee (German, 1879–1940). Color lithograph; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland 1961.154 This lithograph is one of Paul Klee’s many depictions of tightrope walkers, a subject that he saw as reflecting the balance and tension necessary to artistic creation. Against a field of pink, the figure occupies only a small portion of the sheet, much of which is filled with an abstracted landscape of winding stairs and paths. Klee employed a variety of lithographic techniques in the print—from the fine pen lines used to sketch the tightrope walker and his surroundings to the smooth gradient above and below him, making him appear as if spotlit. Paul Klee made this print during a decade spent on the faculty of the Bauhaus, an influential German art school.