Paul Klee's Spiral Screw Flowers III — from the Dusseldorf series later confiscated by the Nazis as degenerate, concentric forms on curving stems, on gallery canvas.

Visual Presence

The composition is divided into two halves, each built around a concentric oval form with a pale off-white nucleus at its centre, connected by thin curved lines and flanked by leaf-like shapes radiating from a central axis. The palette is almost entirely monochromatic, moving through deep charcoal blacks and layered mid-greys, with the cream nuclei providing the only notable contrast. The medium appears to be watercolour or ink wash on paper, with soft fluid edges and visible paper grain beneath thin washes, lending the work a quiet, inward mood weighted by darkness.

About the Art

Paul Klee created Spiral Screw Flowers III as part of a series of botanical-abstraction drawings made during his final period at the Düsseldorf Academy. Each work in the series is composed of concentric circular and oval forms strung along thin, curving lines that suggest both screw threads and plant stems. The series was produced during the same months Klee was forced from his teaching position by the Nazi regime, and works from this group were among those the Nazis subsequently confiscated and labelled degenerate art. The series is now held in major modernist collections, including the Klee-Stiftung in Bern.

Spatial Function

Best in contemporary gallery contexts, project spaces, and any wall calling for serious unhurried attention.