PAUL KLEE (1879-1940)

Towards the end of World War I, Paul Klee's work quickly matured, and his range of subject matter expanded and deepened philosophically. In 1918, the atmosphere of artistic and political revolution in Munich, Klee's pre-war travels in North Africa and his assimilation of Robert Delaunay's Orphist influence were all coming to fruition, particularly in his handling of colour and the transformation of his drawing and form. It was at the beginning of this year that Klee created the present work.

The delicately modulated colour and imaginative, energetic and meticulous draughtsmanship of Ohne Titel is a neat representation by the artist during this transitional and adventurous period of his oeuvre. It was Klee who famously said that drawing was just 'taking a line for a walk' and in this work he demonstrates this principle in the simplest way, contrasting the sharp graphic line against the soft washes of watercolour. Indeed, in the present work the artist seems to take line for a dance, for there is something of the pleasure of articulating movement evident in the lyrical expression of the curved interlocking lines. Klee's art is unique in the history of the twentieth century in that he was the only modern artist who allowed his work to roam freely between the organic and the geometric, the constructive and the intuitive, the figurative and the abstract and between the purely linear and the wholly chromatic. In Ohne Titel Klee moves effortlessly through these formations, creating a visual whole that is one of calm and balance.