Paul Klee

The favourite motifs of the young Paul come entirely from his immediate surroundings. There is his own family, flowers, animals, circus or the fair. The figures are usually portrayed in profile or from the front, also buildings or a carousel are drawn from a side view with no consideration for perspective.  In these children’s drawings it becomes clear how Klee as a child understands living together with adults, in particular with his parents.  The children are mostly drawn much smaller and the adults, the grown-ups, greatly enlarged so that a clear hierachy results. The male figures dominate the drawings. The women are often represented dressed up with striking hats, over-skirts and accessories such as hand bags and umbrellas. In “Family at Table” he draws his own family, his father Hans Wilhelm and his mother Ida Maria, including himself as a smaller figure on the right side of the picture. The father behind the table in the middle is sketched as a large corpulent character with excited facial expression and angry gestures. In his childhood Klee saw his father as strictly authoritarian.

In 1902 Klee re-discovered some of his own childhood drawings which he had sketched between the ages of four and ten. In 1911 Klee placed these childhood drawings at the beginning of his catalogue of works, where from now on all his works are meticulously listed. With this it is clear that Klee considers his childhood drawings as independent works and attributes them a special place of importance in his oeuvre.

Find out more about Paul Klee's children's drawings in our film series "Unpacking Klee".