The naive, whimsical quality of Paul Klee's painting belies the formidable intellect behind the
work. Born near Berne, Switzerland, Klee's early talent for music was nurtured by his father, a
music teacher. Though he rapidly became an accomplished violinist, Klee chose to pursue art
as a career and began his studies at the Munich Academy. After completing his courses there,
Klee traveled to Italy, studying Classical architecture and sculpture and the frescoes of
Pompeii. Returning to Berne, the artist began to explore a wide range of styles, techniques and
media using many innovative, unorthodox materials.
Klee drew inspiration for his paintings from music, literature and nature. His works
exhibits such diversity that they are impossible to categorize as a single style. Writing in his
journal, Klee expressed his highly personal approach to painting: "Laying down complexes of
color patches, freely produced from my feelings, as the ineradicable, essential core of the
work."
In 1911, Klee's work caught the attention of the leading avant-garde group of German
Expressionists, the Blaue Reiter, and he was invited to join their ranks and participate in their
exhibitions. At the request of Walter Gropius, Klee began teaching at the Bauhaus in 1920 and
subsequently taught at Dusseldorf Academy. In 1933 he was forced to resign his position by
the Nazi regime, which labeled his work "degenerate art" and removed his paintings from
German museums. Klee immediately left Germany and returned to Berne. Shortly thereafter,
the first symptoms of the scleroderma, the degenerative disease that caused his death,
appeared. An extraordinarily prolific artist, Klee produced over 8,000 works during his lifetime.
Regarded as one of the major theoreticians of abstractionist art, Klee had a profound impact
on the development of contemporary art.
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