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Paul Klee
Paul Klee (December 18, 1879 to June 29, 1940) was a Swiss
oil painting artist of German nationality. He was influenced by
many different art styles in his work, including
expressionism,
cubism and
surrealism. He and
his friend, the Russian painter
Wassily
Kandinsky, were also famous for teaching at the Bauhaus school of
art and architecture.
Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee (near Berne), Switzerland,
into a musical family ? his father, Hans Klee, was a German music
teacher at the Hofwil Teacher Seminar near Berne. Klee was started
young at both art and music. At age 7 he started playing the
violin, and at age 8, he was given a box of chalk from his
grandmother and was encouraged to draw frequently with it. Paul
could have done either as an adult; in his early years, he had
wanted to be a musician, but he later decided on the visual arts
during his teen years. He studied art at the Academy of Fine Arts
in Munich with Heinrich Knirr and Franz von Stuck. After travelling
to Italy and then back to Berne, he settled in Munich, where he met
Vassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, and other avant-garde figures, and
became associated with Der Blaue Reiter. Here he met Bavarian
pianist Lily Stumpf, whom he married; they had one son.
In 1914, he visited Tunisia with August Macke and Louis Moilliet,
and was impressed by the quality of the light there, writing
"Colour has taken possession of me; no longer do I have to chase
after it, I know that it has hold of me forever ... Colour and I
are one. I am a painter." Klee also visited Italy (1901), and Egypt
(1928), both of which greatly influenced his art. Klee influenced
the work of other noted artists of the early 20th century including
Belgian printmaker Rene Carcan.
Klee worked with many different types of media ? oil paint,
watercolor, ink, and more. He often combined them into one work. He
has been variously associated with expressionism, cubism and
surrealism but his pictures are difficult to classify. They often
have a fragile child-like quality to them, and are usually on a
small scale. They frequently allude to poetry, music and dreams and
sometimes include words or musical notation. The later works are
distinguished by spidery hieroglyph-like symbols. His better known
works include Southern (Tunisian) Gardens (1919), Ad Parnassum
(1932), and Embrace (1939).
Today, an oil painting by Paul Klee can sell for as much as $7.5
million US.
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