Ships in the Dark
- Artist: Paul Klee
- Date: 1927
- Medium: Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions: frame: 611 × 775 × 65 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
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About this artwork
This is “Ships in the Dark” by Paul Klee, painted in 1927. The oil on canvas bursts with bright, rhythmic lines that give the boats a rocking, almost musical feel. Klee slices the sails into interlocking triangles, creating a pulsing beat across the canvas. Above, a blue moon watches over the scene, while more ghostly ship outlines echo to the left and right, all pressed flat onto the surface—no illusionistic depth, just a surface collision of light and dark. The warm hues punch against the surrounding darkness, a signature Klee tension. This work is part of a trio from 1927, linked to “Four Sailing Ships” and the “Departure of the Ships” by a shared rhythmic line he’d sketched in his Bauhaus Pedagogical Sketchbook. Likely finished after a Mediterranean holiday, the painting captures the mood of Klee’s travels and his playful abstraction of familiar seascapes.
See it in person
Ships in the Dark is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
