Rhythm of Bird Flight

Erika Giovanna KlienWW-1935-023148

1935·Oil on canvas, mounted on board·76 × 51 cm (29 15/16 × 20 1/16 in.)

<p>In <em>Rhythm of Bird Flight</em> Erika Giovanna Klien transformed a brightly feathered bird and its dynamic flight into an image of subtle harmony and vibrancy. Based in Austria throughout her early career, Klien was a leading artist associated with Viennese Kineticism, an avant-garde movement whose members were known for their abstract pictures based on familiar objects seen in motion. When the artist emigrated to New York in 1929, she continued to work in this style, making images of modern machines, such as an egg beater and a meat grinder. Unlike Klien’s work that focuses on patternsproduced mechanically, this painting takes inspiration from the natural world.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1935
Medium: Oil on canvas, mounted on board
Dimensions: 76 × 51 cm (29 15/16 × 20 1/16 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Erika Giovanna Klien

Artist

Erika Giovanna Klien

Painting

Erika Giovanna Klien was an Austrian painter and printmaker whose work emerged from modernist abstraction and geometric form in the early twentieth century. Active across painting, woodcut, and lithography, she developed a distinctive vocabulary of interlocking planes and rhythmic linear compositions. Klien's practice extended into the postwar period, sustaining her engagement with color and structure through shifting European cultural contexts.

Borgo Valsugana, Province of Trento, Italy

Full artist profile →