
Rhythm of Bird Flight
<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
- Dimensions
- 76 × 51 cm (29 15/16 × 20 1/16 in.)
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Artist
- Erika Giovanna Klien
Artist

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 →More
More by Erika Giovanna Klien
Moving Spiral [Meat Grinder]
1936 · Charcoal, with graphite, on tan laid paper
Eggbeater
1935 · Watercolor, over graphite, on tan wove paper
Brooklyn Bridge New York
1931 · Watercolor, over graphite, on tan card
Book
1926 · Pencil and crayon on paper
Record
Verified by WattsOS- Artist
- Erika Giovanna Klien
- Year
- 1935
- Dimensions
- 76 × 51 cm (29 15/16 × 20 1/16 in.)
- Watts ID
- WW-1935-023148
Source
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Source
- aic
- Reference
- View at source
- Status
- verified
![Moving Spiral [Meat Grinder]](/api/images/artworks/aic/113817.jpg)


