Hands Up!
1938
About this artwork
This work features a stylized, simplified figure with raised arms rendered in bold black lines against a textured background of blue, orange, and gray pigments. It is a prime example of Klee's late period where his forms became increasingly geometric and reductive.
Did you know?
Created in 1938, a year of great political turmoil in Europe, the title 'Hands Up!' carries a poignant, ironic weight that suggests a surrender or an act of desperation. Klee was living in Switzerland at the time, having fled Nazi Germany after his work was labeled 'degenerate' by the regime, and his late works often reflect this sense of anxiety through deceptively simple, childlike iconography.
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Hands Up!
Paul Klee, 1938
