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PAUL KLEE
Born 18 December 1879
Died 29 June 1940 (aged 60)
Nationality German/Swiss

Paul Klee was a Swiss painter of German nationality. His style was influenced by expressionism, cubism, and surrealism (=surrealismo). His works reflect his humor , his moods and beliefs, and his musicality. He and his friend, the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, were also famous for teaching at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture (=arquitectura).

Early life and training

Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland into a musical family. His father, Hans Klee, was a German music teacher and his mother, Ida Frick, was a singer.

Klee started young at both art and music. At age seven, he started playing the violin, and at age eight, his grandmother gave him a box of chalk (=tiza). Klee was talented in music and art.

In 1898 he began studying art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich with Heinrich Knirr and Franz von Stuck. He was very good at drawing but seemed had no natural colour sense.

After receiving his Fine Arts degree (=grado), Klee went to Italy. He
stayed in Rome, Florence, and Naples, and studied the master painters of past centuries.

Returning to Bern, he lived with his parents for several years, and took some art classes. By 1905, he started with some experimental techniques, including drawing with a needle on a blackened pane of glass (=hoja de vidrio).

Klee was still dividing his time with music, playing the violin in an orchestra and writing concert and theater reviews (=críticas).

Marriage and early career

He married Lily Stumpf, a pianist, in 1906 and they had one son named Felix Paul. They lived in a suburb of Munich, and while she gave piano lessons and performances, he kept the house and painted.

In 1910, he had his first solo exhibition in Bern.That year he met Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, and other avant-garde (=de vanguardia) figures, and became associated with the art group known as Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Horseman). The association with Kandinsky opened his mind to modern theories of color.

His travels to Paris in 1912 exposed (=expuesto) him to Cubism. Klee began working out his own colour experiments in pale watercolors (=acuarelas) and did some primitive landscapes (=paisajes), including 'In the Quarry '(1913) and 'Houses near the Gravel Pit' (1913), using blocks of color.

In 1914 Klee went to Tunisia for two weeks. He arrived in Kairouan, Tunisia on April 15, 1914. Kairouan means "the fortified town" in Arabic. After returning home, Klee painted his first pure abstract. 'In the Style of Kairouan' (1914), composed of colored rectangles and a few circles. The colored rectangle became his basic building block, what some scholars (=eruditos) associate with a musical note.

A few weeks later, World War I began. At first, Klee was not involved in it, but in 1916, he joined the German war effort, and ended up painting camouflage on airplanes and working as a clerk (=oficinista). He continued to paint during the entire war and managed to exhibit in several shows. In 1917, Klee’s work was selling well. His 'Ab ovo' (1917) is interesting for the sophisticated technique he used. It employs watercolor on gauze (=gasa) and paper with a chalk ground (=tiza molida).

Mature career

Klee taught at the Bauhaus, the art school newly formed in 1919 to unite arts and crafts (=artesanías). Klee was a “Form” master in the bookbinding (=armado de libros), stained glass (=vitraux), and mural painting workshops. From the start, the Nazi movement denounced the Bauhaus for its "degenerate art" and in 1933 they shut down the Bauhaus. They also searched Klee's home and he was fired from his job. His self-portrait 'Struck from the List'(=Tachado de la Lista)(1933) commemorates (=conmemora) the sad occasion.

In 1933-4, Klee had shows in London and Paris, and finally met Picasso whom he greatly admired. The Klee family emigrated to Switzerland in late 1933. Klee was in his most creative moment. His 'Ad Parnassum' (1932) is considered his masterpiece and the best example of his pointillist style.

He died in Muralto, Locarno, Switzerland, in 1940.