Paul Klee

PAUL KLEE studied in Munich and worked there as an etcher. In 1911 he joined with Feininger, Kandiosky and Jawleosky in the Blauc Reiter group founded by August Macke; up to that time he had worked mainly in watercolours, painting in an Expressionist manner with overtones of Blake and Beardsley, but subsequently he veered towards Cubism under the influence of Robert Delaunay and from 1919 onwards painted mostly in oils. In 1920 he became a teacher at the Bauhaus and in the ensuing period his paintings mingled the figural with the astract as he explored subtle combinations of colours and shapes, often deriving elements from folk art and even children’s drawings. He severed his connections with the Bauhaus and returned to Switzerland when the Nazis came to power in 1933 and condemned his works as degenerate art.

Excerpt from Art. The World of Art, from Aboriginal to American Pop, Renaissance Masters to Postmodernism.