A biography of swiss born painter and graphic artist paul klee

Early Life Klee was born near Bern in Switzerland in His father was a music teacher and his mother had trained to be a singer. In his early years he studied and showed talent for both music and artbut in his teens declared his preference for the visual arts. By 16, his drawings already showed considerable draftsman skills.

A gifted violinist, he briefly considered music as a career, and between and he played occasionally in the Bern symphony orchestra. Klee was educated in the classical Literarschule a literary secondary school in Bern.

As a youth, he wrote poetry and even tried his hand at writing plays. The diaries he kept from to are valuable documents rich with detailed accounts of his experiences and his observations on art and literature.

As a boy, Klee did delicate landscape drawings, in which he and his parents saw the promise of a career, and he filled his school notebooks with comic sketches. Upon graduating from the Literarschule in he left for Munichwhich was then the artistic capital of Germany, and enrolled in the private art school of Heinrich Knirr.

In he was admitted to the Munich Academy, which was then under the direction of Franz von Stuckthe foremost painter of Munich. Stuck was a rather strict academic painter of allegorical pictures, but his emphasis on imagination proved invaluable to the young Klee.

Klee completed his artistic education with a six-month visit to Italy before returning to Bern.

Paul Klee, (born December 18, , Münchenbuchsee, near Bern, Switzerland—died June 29, , Muralto, near Locarno), Swiss-German painter and draftsman who was one of the foremost artists of the 20th century. Klee's work has influenced composers including Argentinian Roberto García Morillo in , with Tres pinturas de Paul Klee, and the American artist David Diamond in , with the four-part Opus Welt von Paul Klee (World of Paul Klee). Paul Klee Klay click to hear A Swiss-born painter and graphic artist, Paul Klee was born on December 18, , in Munchenbuchsee, Switzerland, into a family of musicians.

The beauty of the art of ancient Rome and of the Renaissance led him to question the imitative styles of his teachers and of his own previous work. Giving vent to his generally sardonic attitude toward people and institutions, Klee fell back on his undisputed talent for caricaturemaking it one of the cornerstones of his art.

His first important works, a series of etchingsInventions, undertaken in —05 after his return from Italy and drawn in a tight technique inspired by Renaissance printsare grotesque allegories of social pretension, artistic triumph and failure, and the nature and perils of woman.

In Klee married Lily Stumpf, a pianist whom he had met while an art student, and that year he settled in Munich to pursue his career. His public debut that year—an exhibition of Inventions in Frankfurt am Main and Munich—was largely ignored.

Early life and training

He tried to earn a living by writing reviews of art exhibits and concerts, teaching life-drawing classes, and providing illustrations for journals and books.

He had one small success as an illustrator: Over the next several years Klee began to address his relative ignorance of modern French art. These varied influences imparted to his work a freedom of expression and a willfulness of style equaled by few other artists of the time.

Kandinsky was then in the process of formulating his influential theory of abstract art as spiritual expression, and while Klee had only limited tolerance for his mysticismthe Russian artist, together with Marc, showed him how far abstraction and a visionary approach to content could be taken. Klee also came to know a wide variety of French Cubist painting from Der Blaue Reiter exhibitions of —12 and from a visit he made to Paris in April From Cubism Klee also derived the frequent use of letters and other signs in his works: Artistic maturity Until Klee found it difficult to paint; he felt a lack of confidence in his abilities as a colourist, and most of his work to that time had been in black and white.

Images of death and fear

His lyrical watercolours of Tunisia, in which the landscape is simplified into transparent coloured planes, are his first sustained body of work in colour. They would be the basis, in subject and style, for much of his painting in subsequent years.

As a Swiss, he felt little of the patriotic zeal and martial enthusiasm shown by many German artists and intellectualsand he was spared front-line duty by recently enacted legislation exempting artists from combat.

He remained in Bavariawhere he was able to continue his art. Many of the paintings Klee did during the war years are romantic childlike landscapes, where war makes its appearance indirectly in images of demons or conflicts with fate.A Swiss-born painter and graphic artist whose personal, often gently humorous works are replete with allusions to dreams, music, and poetry, Paul Klee, b.

Dec. . A Swiss-born painter and graphic artist, Paul Klee was born on December 18, , in Munchenbuchsee, Switzerland, into a family of musicians.

His personal, often gently humorous works are filled with allusions to dreams, music, and poetry, and are difficult to classify. Paul Klee (poul klā), –, Swiss painter, graphic artist, and art theorist, b. near Bern. Klee's enormous production (more than 10, paintings, drawings, and etchings) is unique in that it represents the successful combination of his sophisticated theories of art with a very personal inventiveness that has the appearance of great innocence.

Paul Klee's Biography Paul Klee (18 December - 29 June ) was born in Munchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss] painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism.

Paul Klee Biography

Paul Klee, (born December 18, , Münchenbuchsee, near Bern, Switzerland—died June 29, , Muralto, near Locarno), Swiss-German painter and draftsman who was one of the foremost artists of the 20th century.

Paul Klee >Paul Klee () was a Swiss painter and graphic artist of >extraordinary formal inventiveness whose art combined a childlike, primary >vision and the utmost sophistication.

Paul Klee was one of the great masters who established the essence and character of modern art.