Paul Klee

Paul Klee: Biography

Paul Klee was fundamentally a transcendentalist who believed that the material world was only one among many realities open human awareness. He was a Swiss-born painter,printmaker and musician famous for his fantastic and childlike paintings inspiring the New York School and many others artist of the 20th century. Paul Klee had an interesting life and manyaccomplishments.
In December 18, 1879, in Munchenbuchsee, Switzerland Paul Klee was born. Paul was the only son of Hans Klee and Ida Marie Frick Klee. His father was a German church organist trained as a singerbut failed to achieve the fame he envisioned.  As a result, he became a music teacher.  Reportedly, Hans’ disappointment in his personal loss caused him to be bitter and often, to direct hisfrustration at Paul.  Paul inherited his father’s sharp wit, but it was softer, and more of an ironic humor that was evident in his later paintings through the interplay between images, symbols andwords. Paul’s mother was Swiss and had trained as a singer as well.  She chose to abandon her career to marry Hans.  Described as sensitive, devoted to her son, and encouraging to his artistic bent, Ida becamepartially paralyzed in 1906 and her illness brought them even closer, she died in 1921. Encouraged by his musical parents, he took up violin at age seven. His other hobbies, drawing and writing poems, werenot fostered in the same way. Despite his parents' wishes that he pursue a musical career, Klee decided he would have more success in the visual arts, a field in which he could create rather thanjust perform. In 1906, Klee married Bavarian pianist Lily Stumpf. The couple had a son, Felix Paul in 1907.
In 1886 Paul starts primary school in Bern taking violin lessons from Karl Jahn. Klee was atalented violinist, receiving an invitation to play with the Bern Music Association at age 11. As a teenager, Klee’s attention turned from music to the visual arts. In 1890 Paul Klee starts...