Although German by nationality, Paul Klee (1879-1940) was born in Switzerland where he grew up in a musical family. But it was painting that he chose to pursue, and in 1898, after his baccalaureat, he left to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich.
In 1920, he was appointed to a teaching post first at the Bauhaus in Weimar, then in Dessau where he taught for ten years. In 1931, he left to teach at the Düsseldorf Academy but was dismissed from his post in 1933, forced out by Nazi pressure.
He then moved back to Switzerland where he died in 1940 as a result of complications from scleroderma.
Paul Klee is a key figure in 20th century art, the indisputable reference for current aesthetic thinking, and his reflections on art reveal the poetic breadth of his work. Indeed he used to refer to himself as a "painter-poet".
Although his work remained outside other artistic trends, he was probably one of the most prolific artists of the time (His catalogue of works contains over nine thousand titles).
This exhibition brings together a selection of twenty-six masterpieces that includes both paintings and drawings. Seventeen of these works are from the Beyeler Foundation. They demonstrate the central role of Paul Klee's work within the collection that Ernst Beyeler, a gallery owner from Basle, and his wife Hildy, took over sixty years to create.
Starting out as an art dealer in 1947, Ernst Beyeler, who died recently, took an interest in Paul Klee's work very early on. From the 1950's, he bought Klee's drawings and paintings from private collections in Switzerland and Germany. Later, he acquired works from the artist's son, Felix Klee, as a well as from international collectors.
Yet it was the artist's later works that attracted Beyeler's attention above all. He describes the incredible unfolding of Klee's expressive powers, linked, in his view, to the illness that beset the artist at the end of his life, and that he compared to "a move towards another, tragic dimension, towards a dramatic vision that includes other worlds".
The selection of Klee's works presented at this exhibition reflects three phases of the artist's work: the period of the First World War, the years as a teacher at the Bauhaus and then in Dusseldorf (1920-1933), and finally the return to Switzerland (1933-1940). It also reflects Beyeler's preference for the "later Klee", who, after the Nazis took over, felt he had to abandon his delicate colour harmonies in favour of a harsher style that he developped using coloured backgrounds punctuated by strong black and brown lines.
The presentation of Klee's works at the Musée de l'Orangerie will enable the public to discover this artist through the rigorous selection of one of the most important gallery owners of the 20th century. The great poetry and drama of the artist, the visual magician, can also be studied in relation to the collection assembled by Paul Guillaume.
This exhibition inaugurates a cycle - a new initiative in the Musée National de l'Orangerie's policy as it joins the public establishment of the Musée d'Orsay - which is to present the personal perspective and professional eye of great collectors down the years.
