(Featured image: Paul Klee, Cold City, 1921, watercolour on paper mounted on maroon paper mounted on cardboard. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Berggruen Klee Collection)
Paul Klee is one of my beloved painters and artists.
Today I would like to share some of his works on paper, which I find as beautiful as his pictures on other media. Most of the works belong to the Guggenheim Collection. The rest belong to the Berggruen Klee Collection from the Metropolitan Musem of Art in New York.
Paul Klee, Hilterfingen, 1895. Ink on paper. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Estate of Karl Nierendorf.
Paul Klee was born on December 18, 1879, in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, so he drew this when he was 16 years old. At that time he had no formal training. He studied in Munich from 1898 to 1901.
Paul Klee, Thunersee near Schadau ( Thunersee bei Schadau ), 1895. Ink on paper. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Estate of Karl Nierendorf.
Paul Klee, In Angel’s Care ( In Engelshut), 1931. Watercolor and colored inks on paper, mounted on paper. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Estate of Karl Nierendorf.
Paul Klee, Two Gentlemen Bowing to One Another, Each Supposing the Other to Be in a Higher Position (Invention 6), 1903. Etching on paper. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Estate of Karl Nierendorf.
Color became central to Klee’s art only after a revelatory trip to Tunisia in 1914.
Paul Klee, Untitled, 1914, watercolour and ink on paper mounted on cardboard. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Berggruen Klee Collection,
Paul Klee, Southern Gardens, 1919. Watercolour and ink on paper mounted on cardboard. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Berggruen Klee Collection.
Southern Gardens (1919), a watercolour to which the artist assigned the status Sonderklasse (“Special class”), which meant that he was particularly satisfied with the result and wished to keep it for himself. (National Gallery of Canada, Anabelle Kienle Poňka, November 23, 2018)
Paul Klee, The Bavarian Don Giovanni ( Der bayrische Don Giovanni ), 1919. Watercolor and ink on paper. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Estate of Karl Nierendorf.
Citing Klee’s confession that his “infatuations changed with every soubrette at the opera,” art historian K. Porter Aichele has identified the Emma and Thères of the watercolor as the singers Emma Carelli and Thérèse Rothauser. The others—Cenzl, Kathi, and Mari—refer to models with whom Klee had fleeting romantic interludes. (Nancy Spector)
Paul Klee, Temple Gardens, 1920, gouache and traces of ink on three sheets of paper mounted on paper mounted on cardboard. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Berggruen Klee Collection
Paul Klee, Runner at the Goal ( Läufer am Ziel ), 1921. Watercolor and graphite on paper, mounted on cardboard with gouache border. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Estate of Karl Nierendorf.
Runner at the Goal is an essay in simultaneity; overlapping and partially translucent bars of color illustrate the consecutive gestures of a figure in motion. The flailing arms and sprinting legs add a comic touch to this figure, on whose forehead the number “one” promises a winning finish. (Nancy Spector)
Paul Klee, A Pious One (Ein Frommer), 1931. Graphite on paper, mounted on paper.
Paul Klee, Two Passages (Zwei Gänge), 1932. Watercolor on paper, mounted to paper. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Estate of Karl Nierendorf.
In 1932 Klee was in Düsseldorf, teaching at the Akademie. He was forced by the Nazis to leave his position in Düsseldorf in 1933, and he settled in Bern the following year. Seventeen of his works were included in the Nazi exhibition of “degenerate art,” Entartete Kunst, in 1937.
Paul Klee, Open Book (Offenes Buch), 1930. Water-based paint and varnish over white lacquer on paper, mounted on canvas. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Estate of Karl Nierendorf.
In 1920 a major Klee retrospective was held at the Galerie Hans Goltz, Munich; his Schöpferische Konfession was published; he was also appointed to the faculty of the Bauhaus. Klee taught at the Bauhaus in Weimar from 1921 to 1926 and in Dessau from 1926 to 1931. During his tenure, he was in close contact with other Bauhaus masters such as Kandinsky and Lyonel Feininger.
Paul Klee, Peach Harvest (Pfirsich-Ernte), 1937. Watercolor and charcoal on chalk- and glue-primed paper, mounted with linen strips on paper. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Estate of Karl Nierendorf.
Paul Klee, In Readiness (Bereitschaft), 1931. Graphite on paper, mounted on paper. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Estate of Karl Nierendorf.
Paul Klee, Public Duel (Öffentliches Duell), 1932. Watercolor and india ink on tissue paper, mounted on paper. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Estate of Karl Nierendorf.
Major Klee exhibitions took place in Bern and Basel in 1935 and in Zurich in 1940.
Paul Klee, Rocks at Night (Felsen in der Nacht), 1939. Watercolor and ink on chalk-and glue-primed letter paper, mounted on paper. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Estate of Karl Nierendorf.
Paul Klee, Postulant Angel, 1939. Gouache, ink, and graphite on paper mounted on cardboard. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Berggruen Klee Collection.
In 1936, the artist became immobilized by the incurable tissue disease scleroderma. Klee’s personal suffering combined with the increasing gravity of the political situation in Europe is expressed in more sombre paintings that drew on a muted palette and more simplified, broad forms. (National Gallery of Canada, Anabelle Kienle Poňka, November 23, 2018)
Paul Klee, Boy with Toys (Knabe mit Spielsachen), 1940. Colored paste on paper, mounted on paper. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Estate of Karl Nierendorf.
Klee died on June 29, 1940, in Muralto-Locarno, Switzerland.