Klee at Tate Modern

The Klee show is enormous - 17 rooms' worth of small works - but well worth the effort if you have an interest in Klee's development as an artist. Actually, it's also interesting as a detailed example of how an artist develops his ideas and techniques, absorbs influences, and works hard to produce something unique to him or herself. As it turns out, the point about Klee is that he developed throughout his career; there isn't the typical development to a mature style which is maintained until (usually) the work becomes weaker: on the evidence of this show, Klee explored and mastered new ideas and styles throughout his life, even when he was dying of a degenerative disease.

The big surprise for me was the range of influences shown in Klee's work - he came into direct contact with many of the most significant art movements in Europe during his lifetime, from German expressionism to Russian constructivism and Dutch surrealism, and it seems all these influences were considered, studied, and expertly absorbed into his own work. This makes it impossible to place him within any one movement, but he seems to have maintained good relations with all of them. The works themselves range from the abstract to the semi-abstract to the figurative, and the colour palette similarly varies over the years. It is amazing that none of the work on show puts a foot wrong - nothing seems to have been misunderstood or misjudged (maybe his judgement was actually know when he went wrong and destroy unsuccessful work). In spite of all the influences, every work is first and foremost a work by Klee.

Some people may prefer a show like the one at the Courtauld a number of years ago, which exhibited a smallish selection of (mainly) the "greatest hits"; but the long slog around the Tate show is worth it as Klee's detailed records of his own work means the exhibits can be confidently shown in chronological order, thus given a complete record of his artistic development (a situation which I suspect is without precedent).

Like the Young Durer show, this exhibition is both a chance to see the work of a much-loved artist and a study of an artist's cultural and visual development. Anyone who has an interest in the latter is very lucky to have access to two such shows in the same city at the same time.


The work below shows Klee's skill at combining abstract and figurative elements in his work.