One Who Understands

Paul Klee

1934 · Oil and gypsum on canvas · Modern and Contemporary Art

The squared circle of the abstracted head in Klee's painting is made of the same lines that divide the picture like a cracked windowpane. Klee taught at the Bauhaus—first in Weimar and then in Dessau—between 1921 and 1931 and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf from 1931 to 1933. Hitler's National Socialists declared his work "degenerate" and fired him in 1933.

Artist

Paul Klee

Date

1934

Medium

Oil and gypsum on canvas

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Credit line

Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection, 1998