Klee
ACHIEVEMENTS:
Influential 20th century painter who experimented freely with mediums and styles.
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH:
18th December, 1879 in Munchenbuchsee, Switzerland
DATE/PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH:
29th June, 1940 in Muralto-Locarno, Switzerland. Aged 61.
DISCIPLINE: Art
FIELD: Painter
Red Balloon, 1922, oil on muslin primed with chalk, 31.8 x 31.1 cm. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
LANGUAGE: German
EDUCATION: Munich Academy
MAJOR WORK:
Two Men Meet, Each Believing the Other to Be of Higher Rank (1903)
The Hero with the Wing (1905)
View of Kairuan (1914)
Quarry at Ostermundingen (1915)
Fohn Wind: In Franz Marc’s Garden (1915)
Flower Myth (1918)
Once Emerged from the Grey of Night… (1918)
Cosmic Composition (1919)
Twittering Machine (1922)
The Goldfish (1925)
Around the Fish (1926)
Black Prince (1927)
Highroads and Byroads (1929)
Ad Parnassum (1932)
Musician (1937)
Insula dulcamara (1938)
Flora on the Rocks (1940)
Kettle-Drummer (1940)
Death and Fire (1940)
LIFE AND TIMES:
Paul Klee was born into a family of musicians on 18th December, 1879 near Bern, Switzerland. His mother was a singer and his father was a music teacher. Through their influence he learned to play the violin quite well, but he also loved to draw. There is a story that he used to visit his Uncle Ernst’s restaurant and spend hours drawing the figures he imagined on the marble tabletops.
When it came time for him to decide whether to pursue a career as a musician or an artist he had a hard time making up his mind. Finally, in 1898, he entered the Kunstacademie in Munich to learn to be an artist. A couple of years later he transferred to the Munich Academy and studied under Franz van Stuck.
His studies consisted primarily of conventional figure and landscape drawing. After leaving school in 1901 he toured Italy and studied the ancient sculpture, paintings and architecture he found there. This would prove to be just the first of many trips that would have an impact on his work. Klee was always quick to understand and absorb the techniques of artists and their works, and he did not limit his influences to those of other artists. He also incorporated elements of music and writing into his style.
Klee moved back to Bern in 1902 and began to create a series of etchings. These were first displayed in 1906, the same year he married the pianist Lili Stumpf. Later that year he and Lili moved back to Munich, where he began to be exposed to the works of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists, especially Van Gogh, Cezanne, and Matisse. In 1907 his son, Felix, was born.
After working alone for a number of years, in 1911 Klee met Kandinsky* and other members of the avant-garde artistic scene in Munich. Very soon he began to exhibit his works along with theirs, with great success. In 1913 he visited Paris for the first time, where he saw the works of artists such as Picasso* and Braque*.
1914 turned out to be a pivotal year for Klee, when he made a trip to Tunisia with two painters, August Macke and Louis Moilliet. Something in the quality of the light and colors in that place affected him deeply, to the point where he soon wrote: “Color and I are one. I am a painter.”
The results of the transformation are clearly evident in the series of watercolors he created upon his return. But that was only the beginning of a new phase for him. His wide-ranging interest in different mediums and forms of expression continued throughout his life.
1914 also brought the beginning of World War I, during which time he served as an accounting clerk at a flying school. It was during this time that he began to experiment with incorporating words and letters into his paintings, sometimes just as symbols but sometimes as entire poems.
After the war he moved back to Munich and began to work with oil paints for the first time. It was also during this time that he wrote the line that best expresses his philosophy of art, “Art does not reproduce the visible, but makes visible.” He was very interested in not just the expression of the outer world of nature but also the inner world of feelings and thought.
In 1920 Klee was invited by Gropius* to join the new Bauhaus school at Weimar as an instructor and a resident artist. That association lasted for 13 years and proved to be the most productive of Klee’s life. The atmosphere of free artistic expression, experimentation and instruction fit Klee perfectly, though he did develop the nickname “Bauhaus Buddha” because of his introspective nature.
During these years he experimented with many different paint mediums as well as backings for his paintings. He would use oil, tempura and even crayons in the same painting, for example, and paint on surfaces such as muslin, cardboard and silk. He also continued to develop his own theories of composition, attempting as always to find the balance between inner and outer experience.
The Surrealists became devotees of his work during this time as did younger artists such as Andre Masson and Miro*. In 1933 when the Nazis gained power in Germany, his works were classified as “degenerate” and he was dismissed from his post. In December of that year he and his family moved back to the safety of Bern in Switzerland.
Klee was first diagnosed with the incurable skin disease scleroderma shortly after moving back to Bern. The disease at first depressed him and greatly slowed his artistic output. In 1937, however, he found a new will and inspiration to create. From that point until his death in 1940 he produced a great volume of work, and as always he found new means of expression. Many of his later works are both bold and simple, and they show a remarkable balance between his physical suffering and inner tranquility.
In the 1950s, over 10 years after his death, his works attained a level of popularity rarely achieved by modern artists. This can be attributed, most likely, to his great love of color and his willingness to express both his inner and outer experiences.
ASSESSMENT: His free experimentation with mediums and styles has inspired generations of modern artists.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: None
ONELINER: Paul Klee, influential modern painter
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Dreaming Pictures: Paul Klee. Prestel. 1997. 32pp.
Partsch, Susanna and Benedikt Taschen, Paul Klee, 1879-1904. Cosmopress, 1990.
Venezia, Mike, Paul Klee, Children’s Press. 1991.
www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_bio_75.html
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/klee/
Paul Klee biography. Grove Dictionary of Art Online (subscription database).
PARENTS: unknown
SIBLINGS:
None.
SPOUSE:
Lili Stumpf, 1906-1940
CHILDREN:
Felix, 1907