Swiss-German1879–1940
Paul Klee
A Swiss-German painter and violinist whose small, playful pictures mix signs, lines and colour. He found colour on a trip to Tunisia in 1914 and later taught at the Bauhaus.
A life in paintings
- 1879Born
- 1911The first Blaue Reiter exhibition
Kandinsky and Marc open their exhibition in Munich, arguing that colour can express the spiritual.
- 1912Was influenced by Robert DelaunayParis
Klee visited Delaunay's Paris studio in 1912 with an introduction from Kandinsky and translated Delaunay's essay 'On Light' into German for Der Sturm (1913). Delaunay's colour theory also influenced Marc and Macke.
Source: Wikipedia - 1914The First World War begins
The war breaks up the artists’ circles of Paris, Munich and Berlin.
Worked with August MackeTunisia (Tunis, Hammamet, Kairouan)In April 1914 Macke, Klee and Louis Moilliet travelled together through Tunisia, producing dozens of watercolours; Klee wrote that colour possessed him there. Macke was killed in the war that September.
Source: hatjecantz.com - 1917
- 1919The Bauhaus opens
Walter Gropius founds a school in Weimar joining art, craft and design. Klee and Kandinsky join its teachers in the early 1920s.
- 1921
- 1922Worked with Wassily KandinskyBauhaus, Weimar and Dessau
Colleagues on the Bauhaus faculty from 1922, when Kandinsky joined Klee; earlier linked through Der Blaue Reiter.
Source: Wikipedia - 1931
- 1933The Nazis close the Bauhaus
Modern art is attacked in Germany as ‘degenerate’. Klee returns to Switzerland and Kandinsky moves to Paris.
- 1937
- 1938
- 1940Died
Circles
School · Weimar, Dessau, Berlin · 1919
Bauhaus
German art school 1919-1933. Klee taught there from 1921, joined by Kandinsky in 1922.
Group · Munich · 1911
Der Blaue Reiter
Named after the almanac Kandinsky and Marc edited. First exhibition Dec 1911 at Thannhauser, Munich: 43 works by 14 artists, including Delaunay and Henri Rousseau. Ended with the war (Macke killed 1914, Marc 1916).