Paul Klee

During his youth he developed the habit of frequenting pubs. As a young man he also became involved in numerous affairs with lower class women and artists’ models. One of his several liaisons resulted in the birth of a son in 1900 though the baby died after a few weeks.

In 1906, he married Bavarian pianist Lily Stumpf and they had one son, Felix Paul. His wife gave piano lessons while he kept house and focused on his art.

He suffered from a wasting disease, scleroderma, during his later years and was constantly in pain. His unbearable pain is reflected in one of his last paintings, ‘Death and Fire’ which depicts a skull with the German word for death, “Tod”.

He was born on 18 December 1879 as the second child of German music teacher Hans Wilhelm Klee and his Swiss wife, Ida Marie Klee. He had one elder sister.

From a young age he was encouraged by his parents to learn music. He was sent to attend violin classes at the Municipal Music School when he was seven. He was musically talented and was invited to play as an extraordinary member of the Bern Music Association when he was just 11.

But eventually his interests turned towards art and he began studying art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich with Heinrich Knirr and Franz von Stuck in 1898. He drew well but seemed to lack a natural color sense.

He traveled to Italy with a friend after receiving his Fine Arts degree and spent a few months in 1901–02 studying the master painters of past centuries. He returned home and took occasional art classes.

He started developing some experimental techniques during the 1900s, including etching and drawing with a needle on a blackened pane of glass. From 1903 to 1905 he worked on a series of etchings called ‘Inventions’ in which he illustrated several grotesque characters. During this time he was also playing violin in an orchestra and writing concert reviews.

He met Alfred Kubin in 1911 and Kubin encouraged him to illustrate Voltaire’s ‘Candide’. Kubin was very supportive of the young artist and appreciated his inclination towards the absurd and the sarcastic.

Through Kubin, Klee met many other artists and art critics, and by the winter of 1911 he joined the editorial team of the journal ‘Der Blaue Reiter’ which was co-founded by Franz Marc and Wassily Kandinsky. This period saw Klee experimenting with colors in landscapes.

His work reached a new level of maturity during the World War I. Several of his friends including Auguste Macke and Franz Marc were killed and this deeply affected Klee. He made many pen-and-ink lithographs, including ‘Death for the Idea’, in response to these losses.

He joined the German army in 1916, restoring aircraft camouflage and working as a clerk. He also continued to paint during the entire war and also managed to exhibit in several shows. He became very popular by 1917 and was hailed as the best of the new German artists.