Exhibition opening: Klee meets Picasso at the Zentrum Paul Klee

Paul Klee
‘Kanal b. Sugiez’, 1910, 55
watercolor
15 x 22 cm
Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, Schenkung Paula Lotmar

Paul Klee
D. Garten zur roten Sonnen blume, 1924, 12
Aquarell auf Papier auf Karton
31,8 x 41,4 cm
Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, Paul Klee-Stiftung der Burgergemeinde Bern

Exhibition opening: Klee meets Picasso at the Zentrum Paul Klee With a homage to Paul Klee and Pablo Picasso the Zentrum Paul Klee presents these two imposing exponents of modern art. The exhibition takes as its theme Klee’s analysis of Picasso and reveals unknown interwoven links

6 June – 26 September, 2010

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Source: Zentrum Paul Klee

Klee and Picasso are esteemed as outstanding antipodes of the history of 20th century art, and as artistic personalities could hardly have been more different. One Mediterranean and worldly, the other romantic and spiritual: Klee’s poetic expression and his leaning towards satire and irony stand in contrast to Picasso’s drama, his sensuality and his pathos.

Despite all their differences in temperament, Klee and Picasso still belonged to the same generation and worked on a renewal of art from the sources of human creative energy. Also in the diversity of their pictorial language and in their unusual inventiveness they were similar to one another.

Picasso was a natural phenomenon. He drew all contemporaries under his spell and provoked them into either approval or opposition. Klee was also deeply impressed by Picasso. But as a great individualist he did not simply succumb to his influence, but set out with the aim of understanding the „Spaniard“. His artistic dialogue displayed a mixture of admiration and critical irony, of acceptance and contradiction.

Picasso meets Klee
Klee and Picasso most probably met each other personally on two occasions during their life time: In 1933 in Picasso’s studio in Paris and in 1937 at Paul Klee’s house in Berne. Apart from this, both artists knew about one another and had seen each other’s works in exhibitions and publications. And now – over 70 years later – the two great masters meet again: in a unique exhibition at the Zentrum Paul Klee which illustrates in detail the complex relationship of the artists to one another.