Paul Klee

Paul Klee produces this amusing watercolour in 1933, the year Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, a development that led to Klee losing his job at the academy of arts in Düsseldorf. At the end of the year, Klee and his wife Lily left Germany and return to Klees hometown of Bern.. Many of the works he produced in 1933 reflect changes in society caused by the political upheavals, but Klee also continues to paint and draw playful, satirical and humorous pieces like "Leontine" here.

Once again, technique and content go hand-in-hand. Take a look at the lines, all painted with a brush. It looks as if the face is the result of just one bold brushstroke, apparently unplanned and one swift motion, outlining curves, corners and loops. Klee doesn't actually pick out facial features – nose, eyes, mouth and cheeks – as you'd expect. Instead, everything is pure movement. And everything that transform the lines into a face is given colour: the eyes in blue with their black pupils, the luscious, impishly smiling lips in red, the two ears formed by sweeping lines. The playful use of pictorial techniques parallels the expression and the name of the figure portrayed: Leontine.

As Klee himself once said, his human faces are truer than the originals. He does not portray by attempting to depict precisely. Instead, he invents new beings and faces and characterises them using all the means available to him – colour, form and line.