Paul Klee, Fast getroffen (Nearly Hit), 1928

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)SoMa

Klee Behind the Mask

Now showing8 August 2026 – 18 April 2027$30

Paul Klee and the modern fascination with masks, linking ancient ritual, psychology, theatre and caricature, alongside Man Ray and Claude Cahun.

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On now All of October 2026

One eye rolls up toward a stubby arrow, the other stares straight out at you. That's Klee's Fast getroffen (Nearly Hit) from 1928, and SFMOMA's audio guide has a trick for it: hold your hand over the middle to see the swirling brushwork, then lower it to reveal the arrow, then the face.

The show on Floor 2 places Klee inside the avant-garde's fascination with the mask, from ritual and theatre to caricature. After World War I killed or exiled many of his friends, the museum says, his simplified faces worked as masks rather than portraits. "My self, for instance, is a dramatic ensemble," Klee said. Around him, Dada and Surrealist artists try on other selves: Man Ray photographs Marcel Duchamp dressed as a woman, and Meret Oppenheim X-rays her own skull with her hoop earrings and rings still on, so the bones come accessorised.

Entry is included with general admission ($30, free for 18 and under). SFMOMA is closed Wednesdays and open until 20:00 on Thursdays.

Look for

Klee's Fast getroffen (Nearly Hit), 1928
Look for the simple face with one eye on a bold, stubby arrow and the other on you, ringed by swirling, shimmering brushwork that pulls your eye outward.
Man Ray's Portrait of Rrose Sélavy, 1921
A small photograph of Marcel Duchamp dressed as a woman, as the alter ego whose name puns on the French for 'Eros, such is life'.
Meret Oppenheim's X-ray of My Skull
An X-ray of the Surrealist's own skull and hand, made in 1964 with her double-hoop earrings and rings still on.