Paul Klee

In 1908, Paul Klee painted two portraits of his infant son Felix, one on each side of the same piece of paper. He drew a cross through one of them and wrote “invalid” on it.

A black-and-white photograph from October 1908 shows Felix as a baby in a pram. The photo was taken in the garden of Klee’s parents’ house at Obstbergweg 6 in Bern, and Klee used it as a template. In his watercolour, he translates the interplay of light and shadow from the photograph in painterly form.

Klee seems to have been unhappy with his first attempt: he drew a cross through it and wrote “invalid” on it. On the other side – which today is the front, and which he included in his catalogue raisonné – he once again painted the same figure.

Klee had no interest in creating an exact replica of the photograph. His “valid” version is even less faithful to the photograph and more strongly emphasises the contrasts between light and dark. Klee’s dynamic creative process is clearly demonstrated in this work, Portrait of a Child.