Paul Klee
The painter and illustrator Paul Klee was at the forefront of modern art, taking what he needed from Cubism, Surrealism, and other avant-garde movements to create drawings and paintings that, while sometimes childlike, suggest a complex universe of music, dreamscapes, and pure emotion. He once said, "My hand is only a tool of a far-off sphere". Born in Switzerland in 1879, Klee loved both music and drawing. After moving to Germany he decided to study art at the Jugendstil, though he remained an accomplished violinist. In 1905 he visited Paris, where he encountered the work of Delaunay, Picasso, and Cezanne, all of whom influenced his approach. He first exhibited his etchings at the Munich Secession in 1906, and by 1914 helped found the independent exhibiting society the New Munich Secession. Some of his well-regarded work, including Southern (Tunisian) Gardens (1919) and The Twittering Machine (1922), show his unique interpretation of the abstract. In 1920, Klee took a teaching position at the Bauhaus, where he remained until 1931, when he moved to the Dusseldorf Academy. Klee wrote a number of definitive texts on art theory and drawing. During this time he also became part of Die Blaue Vier, an avant-garde group co-founded by Kandinsky. However, his career in Germany came to a halt when the Nazi regime denounced his art as degenerate. In 1933 he left for Switzerland, where he mounted large exhibitions in 1935-36. At this time, Klee began to experience the symptoms of what we now know was scleroderma. Paul Klee died in 1940, leaving over 9,000 works of art. In 2005 a museum dedicated to his work opened in Bern.
