The Angel of History Arrives: Paul Klee’s ‘Angelus Novus’ Joins Jewish Museum Exhibition
It is a rare occurrence when a single piece of art carries the weight of an entire century’s trauma, and resilience. Paul Klee’s Angelus Novus—a fragile drawing of a straggly angel that survived the horrors of Nazism—has finally arrived in New York from Jerusalem. According to James S. Snyder, the director of the Jewish Museum, the piece is scheduled to go on view this Monday morning.
The arrival is a momentous occasion for the museum’s exhibition, “Paul Klee: Other Possible Worlds,” which runs through July 26. The drawing’s journey was not without drama; its transport was delayed by conflict in the Middle East following attacks by the United States and Israel on Iran, a delay that briefly turned the artwork into a headline-grabbing symbol of geopolitical instability.
Beyond the Image: What is ‘Angelus Novus’?
Translated from Latin as “new angel,” Angelus Novus is not necessarily a display of technical virtuosity. In fact, some scholars suggest Klee created the piece primarily to entertain his young son. Visually, it departs from traditional celestial imagery. Rather than a serene, chubby-cheeked being, Klee’s angel appears as a dazed adolescent.
Rendered in wiry, scratchy black lines, the figure is a walleyed boy floating in the air with small wings and curls that resemble paper scrolls. His open mouth reveals widely spaced front teeth, giving the figure a vulnerable, almost human awkwardness.
A Provenance of Survival and Tragedy
The true power of Angelus Novus lies in its history. In 1921, the German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin discovered the drawing at a gallery in Munich. Though he was in his 20s and living with his parents with little money to spare, Benjamin borrowed approximately $30 from a friend, philosopher Ernst Bloch, to purchase the piece. It became his most prized possession.
The drawing’s survival mirrored Benjamin’s own flight from fascism. When Adolf Hitler became chancellor in 1933, Benjamin fled to Paris, entrusting the drawing to Georges Bataille, a French writer and librarian at the Bibliothèque Nationale. Bataille hid the artwork within the library until the end of World War II.
Tragically, Benjamin never saw the angel again. In September 1940, while attempting to escape the Nazis on foot through Spain, he was ordered back to France. To avoid capture, Benjamin took his own life by swallowing morphine the night before his scheduled return.
“The drawing… Shows an angel who is about to turn away and fly off after contemplating the darker hours of history… A massive ‘pile of debris’ growing skyward in front of him.”
In his posthumously influential 1968 English publication, Theses on the Philosophy of History, Benjamin rechristened the figure as the “angel of history,” transforming a playful sketch into a haunting symbol of human catastrophe.
‘Other Possible Worlds’: A Revisionist Look at Paul Klee
The current exhibition at the Jewish Museum, curated by Mason Klein, provides a bold and incisive look at a vulnerable side of Klee. While the show spans his entire career, it focuses heavily on his final, disastrous years from 1933 to 1940—a period defined by exile, illness, and persecution.
Though Klee was not Jewish, the National Socialists targeted him regardless. Branded a “degenerate” and falsely labeled a Jew, he was dismissed from his position at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts in 1933. His works were stripped from German museums, and he eventually fled to Bern, Switzerland. Despite being in his birth country, he remained stateless, denied Swiss citizenship.
Adapting Through Adversity
Klee’s late work was shaped by his battle with scleroderma, an autoimmune disease that caused his skin to harden and limited his manual dexterity. He adapted his style, moving away from pin-thin lines toward a blunter, “caterpillar-furry” aesthetic.
Several key works in the exhibition highlight this shift and his response to the rise of authoritarianism:
- Revolution of the Viaduct (1937): A satire of Nazi triumphalist monuments, featuring 12 fruit-colored marble arches that march like a band of thugs.
- Protected Children (1939): A gritty painting on burlap depicting stick-figure schoolchildren struggling against a rainstorm, symbolizing helplessness in a ruined world.
- Angel Applicant (1939): A somber piece featuring a ghost-like figure aware he will be denied entry to heaven by a corrupt admissions committee.
- Crawling Man: A scribbly pencil drawing that openly mocks the National Socialists through a figure of anguished disbelief.
Key Takeaways: Paul Klee and the Angel of History
- The Artwork: Angelus Novus is a 1921 drawing that became a symbol of historical catastrophe through the interpretation of philosopher Walter Benjamin.
- The Connection: Klee and Benjamin both died in 1940—Klee in June at age 60, and Benjamin in September at age 48—forever linked by this single piece of art.
- The Exhibition: “Paul Klee: Other Possible Worlds” highlights Klee’s late-career struggle with scleroderma and his resistance to Nazi persecution.
- The Legacy: The exhibition challenges the view of Klee as merely “whimsical,” revealing a fierce moral undercurrent in his response to fascism.
The arrival of Angelus Novus completes a narrative of survival. While the artwork could not save its creator or its most famous owner, its staring, fearful eyes remain a potent reminder that the catastrophes of the past are never truly gone.
Visit the Exhibition:
Paul Klee: Other Possible Worlds
Through July 26
The Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Avenue, New York