Collection: Paul Klee

Paul Klee (18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented with and eventually deeply explored color theory, writing about it extensively. His lectures Writings on Form and Design Theory (Schriften zur Form und Gestaltungslehre), published in English as the Paul Klee Notebooks, are held to be as important for modern art as Leonardo da Vinci's A Treatise on Painting was for the Renaissance.

He and his colleague, Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, both taught at the Bauhaus school of art, design and architecture in Germany. His works reflect his dry humor and his sometimes childlike perspective, his personal moods and beliefs, and his musicality.

His work was influenced by James Ensor, Artistry of the Mentally Ill, and Pablo Picasso. His best-known works include Dance of the Moth, Villa R, Twittering Machine, and Sumpflegende. He focused on abstract art and geometric abstraction. He is identified with Color Field and pointillism. He is associated with the Der Blaue Reiter current.