Klee and Kandinsky

As a great KKK admirer—no, not the Ku Klux Klan, but the artists Kirchner, Klee and Kandinsky —, a visit to the great Klee and Kandinsky exhibition at Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern (Switzerland) was mandatory.

Zentrum Paul Klee houses the Klee bequest, including some 4000 artworks, numerous letters, Klee’s last atelier and more. It is worth a visit anytime, despite the fact that the museum has no permanent collection on display. Temporary exhibitions such as the current Klee and Kandinsky (until September 27, 2015) and Klee in Bern (until January 17, 2016) are a delight.

Catalogue: Vivian Endicott Barnett on the relation between Klee and Kandinsky

In her short catalogue (English: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de; German: Amazon.de) essay to Klee and Kandinsky, the Kandinsky-specialist Vivian Endicott Barnett points out that the art of Paul Klee (1879-1940) and Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) shows “similarities in scale, theme, motifs and even technique” which “suggest[s] a dialogue between the two artists. Their lives intersected at various times between 1911 and 1937, and their art responded to each other’s.”

Paul Klee and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner both studied with Franz von Stuck in Munich at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century and the two artists were neighbors in Ainmillerstrasse in Munich from 1908 onwards. Nevertheless, although their paths may have crossed earlier, they only got to know each other in October 1911.

In her essay, Vivian Endicott Barnett focuses on the years Klee and Kandinsky were in close contact, comparing specific works. She asserts that correspondences between the art of Klee and Kandinsky emerges most clearly in their watercolors and drawings.

In the summer of 1911, Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc had began to plan an almanac (The Blue Rider / Der Blaue Reiter). Kandinsky painted several watercolors for the cover depicting horses with riders. Klee had turned to the same subject and made drawings of horses such as Horse Race I and Before the Start before he knew either of the other two almanac artists. Both Klee’s were shown at The Second Exhibition of the Blue Rider Editorial Office: Black and White (Die zweite Ausstellung der Redaktion der Blaue Reiter: Schwarz-Weiss). Vivian Endicott Barnett explains that Kandinsky personally invited Paul Klee to participate in this exhibition of works on paper, which opened in February 1912. Klee’s Study of a Horseman recalls Kandinsky’s final version of The Blue Rider cover. Klee’s small-scale lithograph St George bears a resemblance to Kandinsky’s images of horses and riders. All those works can be admired at the Bern exhibition.

Vivian Endicott Barnett notes that “an untitled watercolor of 1912-13 that Kandinsky gave to Klee (cat. no. 153) shares similarities with Klee’s Stage Landscape (1913, 153) in the placement of compositional elements within a restricted space.” Probably in return for this work, Lee gave Miraculous Draught of Fish (cat. no. 151) and Sacred Stones and Images of Gods (cat. no. 132) to Kandinsky. The author remarks that “Klee’s drawings are considerably smaller and lack color.”

Thanks to a comparison of other works by the two artists, Vivian Endicott Barnett concludes that “in spite of the similarities in the thrust of diagonal lines and in compositional elements, Klee’s watercolor is firmly tied to his surroundings, whereas Kandinsky’s intention is to break free from the visible word.” In addition, she writes, that, “at that time, many of Kandinsky’s watercolors were studies for paintings, whereas Klee’s were independent works of art.”

I would add as a general line of distinction that the works by Klee are generally smaller in scale, more fragile and (especially from the Bauhaus years onwards) more poetic than Kandinsky’s (whose works became colder, more geometric and less “organic” in the Bauhaus years).

Vivian Endicott Barnett observes that, by 1913-14, both Klee and Kandinsky had introduced round and oval shapes in their works on paper. “Geometric forms and a greater sense of structure appeared in many of their watercolors…”

The First World War forced the Russian Kandinsky to leave Germany abruptly. First, he traveled to Goldach in Switzerland, where he met Klee in early October 1914, before returning to Russia later that year.

Books about Paul Klee from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr. Books about Wassily Kandinsky from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk. Sheet music inspired by Paul Klee.

Kandinsky had difficulties to adapt and painted no canvases in 1915 and 1918, but only made drawings and watercolors. He could no longer show his works in Europe and received no money from galleries. In 1917, his family lost its assets in the 1917-revolution. The following year, he became active in the People’s Commissariat for Enlightenment and taught at Free State Art Studios in Moscow. He became an influential administrator in the Museums of Painterly Culture in the Soviet Union in 1919.

Klee on the other hand continued to paint and drew during his service in the German army from 1916 until 1918. His works were part of many exhibitions throughout Germany. In 1921, he began his teachings at the Bauhaus in Weimar. At the end of that year, Wassily and Nina Kandinsky arrived in Germany. Soon after his return, Wassily was appointed a master at the Bauhaus. In May 1922, the couple traveled to Weimar. Nina later recalled that the reunion with Paul Klee was Kandinsky’s “most wonderful experience.”

They discovered each others output of recent years. Klee had been prolific, widely exhibited. His works had been featured in many articles and had been the object of three monographs. His contract with the Galerie Goltz in Munich was advantageous, whereas Kandinsky was no longer represented by any gallery. He sued the owner of the gallery DER STURM, Herwarth Walden, for not paying him for works sold during the war. Kandinsky’s art made during the years in Russia was almost unknown, and he had only brought a few pictures with him form Russia/the Soviet Union. Therefore, Vivian Endicott Barnett notes, “he quickly arranged for twelve paintings and twenty-two watercolors to be exhibited at the Galerie Goldschmidt-Wallerstein in Berlin…” in 1922. The same year, “Kandinsky began to make watercolors as independent works rather than as studies for paintings or prints.”

In 1922 both Klee and Kandinsky exhibited works in the First Thuringian Exhibition at the Landesmuseum in Weimar. Kandinsky showed two pictures made in Russia the year before and a canvas recently painted in Berlin, whereas “Klee was represented by two works on paper that demonstrated his recent innovative techniques … of oil transfer drawing on a plaster ground.”

Vivian Endicott Barnett describes Klee’s new techniques that “surely” impressed Kandinsky: “the experimental grounds (chalk priming, glue priming, and plaster priming) from 1916 on, his cut and recombined watercolors from 1918 on, the oil transfer process from 1919 on, the color gradations from 1921 on, and the early traces of sprayed watercolors that appeared n 1921-22.”

On the other hand, she notes that Lee must have been surprised by Kandinsky’s “sparse linear elements and precise geometric shapes in primary colors … placed on a white background. The expressionist abstractions and freely brushed watercolor … had been replaced by more formal and restraint structures.” For Vivian Endicott Barnett, “Klee’s art developed and expanded greatly from 1914 to 1922, [whereas] Kandinsky’s style had changed fundamentally.”

In 1923 both Klee and Kandinsky exhibited at the Bauhaus exhibition in Weimar. The two Bauhaus colleagues had of course plenty of occasions to talk to each other. Vivian Endicott Barnett notes that, “at that time, the differences between Klee and Kandinsky were greater than the similarities.” She notes however in the next sentence of her essay that, during their years as masters at the Bauhaus, “a dialogue between the two artists became evident, especially in their works on paper.” She refers to the introduction of checkerboards or grids into Kandinsky’s work while he was in Russia. Those motifs appear in several of his 1923-watercolors, for example in an untitled work that he gave to Klee later that year. In return, the author notes that the receding diagonal of multicolored squares appeared in Klee’s works in 1923, e.g. in Flower Garden (1923, 66).

On the other hand, in 1924, Kandinsky introduced in certain areas of his watercolors “the bands of modulated and gradated color harmonies that Klee [had] favored in [the] early twenties..” Vivian Endicott Barnett recognizes parallels in Klee’s and Kandinsky’s works on paper from 1924. “They share similar angular forms and multiple curving lines.” Balancing forms and playful elements in Kandinsky’s watercolors from the summer of 1924 echo Klee’s work. In late 1924, Kandinsky introduced arrows, joining squares and triangles, which recall earlier works by Klee.

As early as in 1921, Klee began spraying watercolor on his works. Kandinsky only began to use the spray technique six years later.

Vivian Endicott Barnett denotes similarities between Klee’s Gulf of Y and Kandinsky’s Upward: “both have a row of triangular forms denoting mountains and, at the upper left, a circle depicting the moon. However, Klee’s night scene was made with sprayed watercolor against a dark ground, whereas Kandinsky applied washes of color, multiple black lines, and mottled surfaces on a white sheet.” Klee’s watercolor has a calm appearance, whereas Kandinsky creates a movement in his work.

The Weimar Bauhaus closed in April 1925 and relocated to Dessau, where Kandinsky moved to in June, subletting a room to Klee for the days on which he taught. Therefore, they saw each other as well as their works even more often in Dessau than in Weimar.

Vivian Endicott Barnett recognizes similarities between ink drawings that Kandinsky made in 1925 for his book Point and Line to Plane (Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr) with works by Klee from 1927, e.g. repetitions of triangles and lines.

In 1926, Kandinsky finished almost no watercolors, whereas Klee made many. He gave one of these, Letter-Paper Picture for 5 December 1927, to Kandinsky for his birthday. The inscriptions referred to places where Kandinsky had lived: Moscow, Munich, Weimar and Dessau.

In June 1926, the Kandinskys moved to Burgkühnauer Allee 6. The following month the Klees set up their residence next door at number 7. The artists were now not only colleagues but also neighbors and remained it until December 1932. The masters’ houses built by Walter Gropius were linked by a hallway in the basement. In addition, the two families shared a garden, and the artists had studios in their adjacent homes. However, Nina Kandinsky said later that she “never heard Klee and Kandinsky talk about art. Art was a subject that they at most discussed among themselves at the Bauhaus.” In the garden linking their masters’ homes, they loved to drink tea together. A few photographs have immortalized some of those scenes. A decade later, as emigrants in Bern and Paris, they remembered with nostalgia those hours spent together in Dessau.

In September and October 1927, Kandinsky began to use the spray technique in his watercolors to accentuate compositional elements, notes Vivian Endicott Barnett in her catalogue entry. In December 1929, he offered Klee the purely geometric watercolor Towards Green for his 50th birthday.

In those years, corresponding images can be found in the art of Klee and Kandinsky. The two artists shared a fondness for motifs such as fish, boats, sails and ladders. Vivian Endicott Barnett’s comparison of two works from 1928, Kandinsky’s Emotions and Klee’s Clouds over BOR, “reveals striking similarities. Both display bright red splotches of color and fine black ink lines; moreover, they are approximately the same size.”

In 1929, both families spent their summer holidays on the Mediterranean coast in southwestern France. In August, they met at Hendaye-Plage, where the famous photograph of Klee and Kandinsky posing as “Goethe and Schiller” was taken.

In 1930, they responded to each other’s work. Vivian Endicott Barnett notably compares “Kandinsky’s unusually figurative work Upright” with Klee’s coeval watercolors Main Thought and Portrait of a Scholar.

In 1931, Klee terminated his contract with the Bauhaus and moved to Düsseldorf, where he took up the position of professor at the Staatliche Kunstakademie. However, he continued to live in Dessau and traveled to Düsseldorf for two weeks per month.

In 1932, the Bauhaus closed in Dessau and moved to Berlin as a private institution. Therefore, in December 1932, the Kandinskys relocated to the German capital too. Logically, Klee inscribed his watercolor Rhythms of a Plantation offered to Wassily Kandinsky for his birthday that year: “To my dear friend and former neighbor.”

The two artists were no longer neighbors, but corresponded with each other through letters. However, the close relationship, which had began in 1922, was definitively a thing of the past.

In July 1933, the Bauhaus closed for good in Berlin. Vivian Endicott Barnett underlines in her catalogue essay that Kandinsky’s work Round Poetry of the same month closely resembles Klee’s Steerable Grandfather of 1930 as well as his Landscape Cart No. 14. She refers to other works displaying similarities. She asserts that, after their physical separation in 1932, they continued their “spiritual relationship”. They briefly met again in October 1933 in Paris. At the end of that year, the Kandinskys relocated from Berlin to Paris, whereas the Klees emigrated from Düsseldorf to Bern.

In 1936, Klee sent the gouache The Noble Wood to his friend for his 70th birthday inscribed: “For Kandinsky in time-honored friendship on your birthday on Dec. 4, 1936.” Vivian Endicott Barnett underlines that their “reciprocal exchange of ideas and an ongoing dialogue through their art” continued.

Klee and Kandinsky met for the last time in February 1937 when the Kandinskys traveled to the Swiss capital for the opening of Wassily’s retrospective at Kunsthalle Bern. Kandinsky brought with him the watercolor Above-Below, which he dedicated “To my dear friend of many years.” Kandinsky later wrote to Lily Klee about the “wonderful memory” their hours spent together had left and remarked: “In today’s cool and increasingly cooler ‘atmosphere’, the rare warmth does even more good than was the case in old times.”

Although Paul Klee was already very ill, he managed to see Kandinsky’s Bern retrospective on its last day. Lily Klee wrote to Nina Kandinsky in 1937 that her husband had been impressed by the exhibition, that he had never seen such a large-scale and extensive show of Kandinsky’s oeuvre before, and that he had spent most of the time admiring Wassily’s paintings from Paris shown in the central hall. Klee had not seen Kandinsky’s work since 1933 and, according to Vivian Endicott Barnett, must have been surprised by the “abrupt shift in style, new light colors, and biological imagery…” She observes in Kandinsky’s recent gouaches such as Floating and Varied Horizontals “backgrounds not dissimilar from Klee’s earlier pictures on dark ground from 1927-30.”

Kandinsky wrote after the visit of his Bern retrospective to Max Huggler, the director of the Kunsthalle: “In Weimar and Dessau, we were very used to show each other our production very often. And then came an interruption that lasted nearly four years. There are not many colleagues I like to show my pictures to… but Klee is a great and very rare exception, and besides, I highly respect his judgment.”

Paul Klee died of heart failure on June 29, 1940 at the Sant’Agnese Clinic in Locarno, Switzerland. Wassily Kandinsky, his senior by thirteen years, died of a stroke on December 13, 1944 in liberated Paris.

The catalogue and the Bern exhibition Klee and Kandinsky

The chronological exhibition Klee and Kandinsky at Zentrum Paul Klee (ZPK) in Bern shows over 180 works by the two eminent artists. In addition to ZPK and the Munich exhibition partner Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, Nationalgalerie Berlin, the Guggenheim in New York as well as many other museums and private collectors contributed to this landmark show.

Klee and Kandinsky covers the period from 1900 to 1940, focusing on the interaction of the two artists and teachers, particularly the Dessau period beginning in 1926.

The exhibition and catalogue concept is based on the preparatory work of Christine Hopfengart, who has been developing the project since 2010, when she was still a curator at Zentrum Paul Klee.

In addition to the essay by Vivian Endicott Barnett focusing on the works on paper by the two artists from 1911 until 1937, the catalogue features articles by Michael Baumgartner regarding Klee’s “Nature Cosmology”, by Annegret Hoberg on Kandinsky’s “Natural” and “Artificial World”, by Peter Vergo on “Klee, Kandinsky, and Music”, by Wolfgang Thöner on “Forces Moving in Different Directions”, by Fabienne Eggelhöfer and Angelika Weissbach on Klee’s and Kandinsky’s period as “Teaching Painters at the Bauhaus”, by Angelika Weissbach on Kandinsky’s teachings at the Bauhaus, by Fabienne Eggelhöfer on Klee’s “Theory of the Paths to Form” and by Charles Werner Haxthausen on “Klee, Kandinsky and the German Critics”. In addition, the catalogue offers a detailed chronology by Christine Hopfengart and a series of catalogue entries, a detailed bibliography and more.

Last but not least, I visited Zentrum Paul Klee in June just before the famous Art Basel, the world’s leading art fair. The best exhibits in the 2015-edition offered the Canadian Landau Fine Art gallery. In addition to outstanding works by Dubuffet, Marino Marini and others, I spotted at their stand a very expensive Kandinsky as well as three works by Paul Klee. Parkbild bei Regen (1920, 123), 44x32cm, had already by sold when I tried to have another look at the small-scale, oil on canvas work by Klee the following day. In other words, with substantially deeper pockets, I could have bought my own, small Klee and Kandinsky exhibition at Art Basel.

This exhibition and catalogue review is based on the book: Klee & Kandinsky: Neighbors, Friends, Rivals. Prestel, 2015, 360 pages, 303 color images, 62 black and white images. Order the English version from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de. Order the German version from Amazon.de.

Above is an alternative, German catalogue cover of: Klee & Kandinsky: Neighbors, Friends, Rivals. Prestel, 2015, 360 pages, 303 color images, 62 black and white images. Order the English version from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de. Order the German version of Klee & Kandinsky: Nachbarn, Freunde, Konkurrenten from Amazon.de. The book cover features a photograph showing Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky sitting in their garden at the famous Bauhaus, where they were neighbors.

More books about Paul Klee from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr. More books about Wassily Kandinsky from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk. Sheet music inspired by Paul Klee.

The exhibition Klee & Kandinsky is on display at
– Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern, Switzerland from June 19 until September 27, 2015.
– Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich, Germany from October 21, 2015 until January 24, 2016.

Article added on July 23, 2015 at 22:01 CET