Art by Paul Klee with an equal basis among the main artistic movements of the XX century - expressionism, cubism, surrealism, abstract art, and his name is on the right is among the first masters of abstract art - close to Kandinsky, Malevich, Mondrian and Delaunay, not inferior to them in popularity. Today, Paul Klee - one of the most popular artists. For example, exhibition of 100 paintings by Klee in Duesseldorf open September 29, 2012, has become so popular that it was extended until April 21, 2013. And in early February were added exhibition "Klee and Jawlensky" in the center of Bern, Paul Klee.

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Paul Klee was born in Myunhenbukzee, near Bern, December 18, 1879. It is believed that the three-year crayons gave Paul his grandmother, concerned about the development of creative abilities of the child. Klee loved drawing since childhood, and do not forget the paper and pencils, when his father - a teacher of music - take it with you on trips.

son of musicians, he played the cello and violin, was an admirer Bach and Mozart. Literary predilections - Hoffmann and Edgar Allan Poe, in his philosophical pursuits was close to Hermann Hesse.

After high school, Paul Klee went to Munich - to study painting. At nineteen, he studied at the Munich Academy of the artist Heinrich Knirra, and the autumn of 1900 he was accepted into the academic class of Franz von Stuck, who admittedly did not have much impact on him as an artist. In 1901, Klee made a long trip to Italy, but under the influence of the Renaissance also missed.

Then a few years, he returned to Switzerland, to the parents, in Bern. All the while he was making a living playing in the orchestra, and articles on art, while continuing to educate ourselves. So, in Bern had a new hobby - engravings, and he devised a novel technique of drawing with a needle on the glass.

• emotional portrait of a lady. 1906
  painting on glass. 24 x 15,8
  Center Paul Klee, Bern
  Source: emuseum.zpk.org

September 15, 1906 Klee married Lily Stumpf (their introduction has taken place in 1899 in Bern, the future wife was a pianist and teacher) and two weeks later moved to Munich. In the same year he first exhibited his etchings, but his work on the glass one was not interested.

first solo exhibition of drawings, etchings and watercolors by Paul Klee in Bern, opened in 1910, interest it was too weak, and it is very frustrating for the artist. That same year, Klee wrote his first oil painting. It is well known that working with oil paints, he was hard at first, he made numerous sketches, but the results did not satisfy him.

Klee flower boxes, watering can and a bucket. 1910 Watercolour. 133 x 139 Source: wikipaintings.org

He was over 30 when he met Wassily Kandinsky. In 1911, Clay became a member of the "Blue Rider" creative association of representatives of Expressionism, whose goal was to achieve equality of all forms of art. During this period, most successfully obtained Klee watercolor, and it is with watercolors, he participated in the second exhibition of the association in 1912.

Later he met Delaunay, Picasso and Braque, in the works of each of the They found motivation to continue their own research. So fascinated by experiments Delaunay in 1913 he translated into German and published in the journal "Storm" his essay "On the color." And in 1914, one of the first recorded act of artistic Klee automatism (with closed eyes drew a line, trying to convey what he saw the mind's eye) - a device to which the surrealists come only a few decades. In general, 1914, - a watershed year in the life of an artist: his knowledge, observation, experience, many friendly conversations with Kandinsky and Franz Marc, and finally his arrival in Paris - all came together: Paul Klee began to feel confidence in the colors of their own. "This is the meaning of a happy moment, I and color are one. I - artist "- he wrote in his Paris dnevnike.

Klee Red and white dome. 1914 Parchment on cardboard, watercolor. 14,6 x 13,7 Source: wikipaintings.org

Klee survived the First World War and the difficult return to civilian life. He joined the army in 1916, a few days after his friend Franz Marc was killed in battle. Until his discharge in 1919, he worked primarily on clerical work and did not stop painting. Later Klee believed that the horrors of war contribute to the development of abstraction, and the peace of life - figurative. In the early 1920s, he experimented with form and abstraction, genres and themes, addressing at some point even to surrealism.

Klee Lamb. 1920 Gouache. 63,4 x 45,6 Source: wikipaintings.org

In 1920 Klee accepted the offer to work with Walter Gropius Bauhaus (Bauhaus - High School construction and artistic design. At its inception, it has combined the Weimar High School of Fine Arts and the College of Applied Arts and was to contribute to all the visual arts. integral part of the creative process are considered trade skills. Walter Gropius was the first director of the institution. same name had and artistic association that emerged in this institution, and the corresponding trend in architecture in Germany and Austria in 1920-30s) and from 1921 for 10 years was a professor of educational and scientific center in Weimar and then in Dessau.

Klee heads made from a piece of kirpicha.1919 Sculpture. 30,5 x 13,5 x 9,5 Center Paul Klee, Bern Source: emuseum.zpk.org

To those 1920s are the first experiments that go beyond the two-dimensional art. He experimented with form and technique - to create dolls with motifs of ready-made (art technique in which the author presents his work as an object or text, created not by itself and not with the artistic goals) in the manner of Duchamp.

In 1929-1933 Klee taught at the Art Academy in Düsseldorf. Under pressure came to power in 1933, the National Socialists had to leave him, and he always left Germany for Switzerland in Bern.

Klee dancer. 1932 canvas. 66 x 56 Christie's. 21.06.2011 Estimate: 2 000 000-3 000 000 GBP Result: 4,185,250 pounds Source: christies.com

In 1937 Klee's paintings were included in the infamous exhibition "Degenerate Art" in Munich. They were displayed next to the works Marc Chagall , Wassily Kandinsky , El Lissitzky , Alexei von Jawlensky and 29 representatives of the avant-garde art, working in Germany (for more details about the exhibition, please Forum AI and here ). Art of all these artists, including the terminally ill Klee (in 1935, he fell ill with scleroderma), was declared "degenerate", many of the paintings destroyed.

June 29, 1940 60 - old artist died in Muralto, near Locarno. During his life he created about 3,500 paintings and drawings, three volumes of essays and blog.

Klee Garden. 1932 canvas. 81.5 x 61,3 Christie's. 23-25.06.2009 Estimate: 600 000-900 000 Result: 3,985,000 euros Source: christies.com

Klee Future. 1933 canvas. 61,1 x 49,5 Christie's. 04.05.2010 Estimate: 2 000 000-3 000 000 Result: 3,330,500 dollars Source: christies.com

high audience interest in the work of Paul Klee, perhaps comparable with the emphasis displayed a great collectors and investors. Klee's work - indispensable part in all the major art auctions first half of the XX century, and his works have sold many and costly. And I must say that in contrast to the works of many other equally eminent artists of Klee not plummeted in value as a result of the 2008 crisis. Record for his painting price was paid June 21, 2011 - Canvas "Dancer" (1932) has gone from trading for more than six million dollars, and other expensive work are 2008-2010 years. And interest in the artist among collectors - is not a fashion in recent years, but in decades an ongoing process and it is sufficient to say that the record for the artist price for graphics work - 3,736,978 dollars for the work "L. Singer as Fiordiligi, 1923-39" was reached at a Sotheby's auction in London on November 28, 1989.

Paul Klee holy place. 1932 Watercolour. 45.7 x 34 Christie's. 07.05.2008 Estimate: 600 000-800 000 Result: 2,953,000 dollars Source: christies.com

often works by Paul Klee go to auction with a significant (sometimes by an order) exceeded the estimate. That's what was sold, in particular, many of the most expensive work - for example, the oil "The Garden" (1932) rose from 600,000 euros to nearly 4 million during the auction at Christie's in June 2009. A year earlier the same Christie's watercolor "holy place" soared from 600 000 to the lower limit of the estimate of almost three million of the final price.

Interestingly, the most expensive oil paintings are valued by investors ( by the way, rarely offered for sale in the last 20 years recorded 184 lots of paintings by the artist in 1037 against lots graphics), written by the artist in the 1930s, while attracting viewers, according to the compositions of recent shows, most earlier work of the artist.

Maria Kuznetsova, AI

Source: zpk.org , nashagazeta.ch , kunstsammlung.de , Michael Herman. Modernism. Art of the first half of the XX century (Moscow, 2008), artinvestment.ru