© 2023 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Rough-Cut Head

1935

Paul Klee

Watercolor and mixed media on paper

27.6×37.8 cm

Collection of the The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

In 1920, Walter Gropius invited Paul Klee to join the Bauhaus school. The Bauhaus was an institution focused on architecture and industrial design, encompassing studies in art and craftsmanship. Out of Klee's approximately 10,000 works, which primarily consisted of small watercolor paintings and paper sketches, nearly half were created during his ten-year tenure at the Bauhaus. These works exhibit a wide range of styles.

Some of Klee's works are related to the themes of his courses and reflect his emphasis on color relationships. In his later works, Klee's somber tone reflects his personal hardships and the increasingly dire political situation in Europe. The lines in his artworks transformed into bold strokes, the forms became more expansive and abstracted, the proportions became larger, and the colors became simpler.