# Paul Klee artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/paul-klee/
Profile generated: 2026-08-18T14:35:34.933Z
Quality: high confidence, strong sources

## Artist identity

- Birth date: 1879-12-18
- Death date: 1940-06-29
- Nationality: German, Swiss
- Movements: Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, Der Blaue Reiter circle, Bauhaus modernism
- Common media: Painting, Printmaking, Etching, Works on paper, Mixed media

## Portrait

![Paul Klee](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Paul_Klee_1911.jpg)
Alexander Eliasberg · Public domain
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paul_Klee_1911.jpg

## About Paul Klee

Paul Klee (1879–1940) was a Swiss-born artist who held German citizenship throughout his life and is commonly described as German-Swiss. Trained in Munich, he developed an individual modernist practice that moved between recognizable imagery and abstraction. His work is associated with Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, the Blaue Reiter circle, and the Bauhaus, although no single label fully describes its range. Klee participated in the second Blaue Reiter exhibition in 1912, and a 1914 journey to Tunisia marked an important deepening of his engagement with color. Beginning in 1921, he taught at the Bauhaus for approximately a decade. Collectors encounter paintings, works on paper, etchings, other prints, and editions, including early satirical images with altered or exaggerated figures. His inventive use of line, color, symbols, and shifts between figurative and abstract forms makes careful identification of medium, date, and production context especially important.

## Common works and media

Auction and appraisal contexts may include Klee paintings, drawings and other works on paper, etchings, prints, and editions. His early printmaking includes the eleven-part Inventions series of 1903–1905, known for satirical and distorted figures. Later works may combine abstract structures with recognizable forms and emphasize relationships among line and color. Some auction records are placed in sculpture, mixed-media, or decorative-art categories, but those broad classifications require object-level verification. For prints and editions, the technique, edition statement, impression quality, paper, inscriptions, and condition should be recorded separately from the image or composition.

## Market and appraisal context

Paul Klee's public auction record spans paintings, works on paper, prints, editions, and objects placed in broader mixed-media or decorative-art categories. These categories should not be compared indiscriminately: an original painting, a unique drawing, and an editioned print present different appraisal questions. Relevant factors include medium, dimensions, date, condition, restoration, signature or inscriptions, edition information, provenance, exhibition history, catalogue references, and confidence in attribution. Comparable sales are most useful when the objects share these characteristics and were sold under similar conditions. Public results provide market evidence but do not capture every private transaction, and reported prices or attribution descriptions may change. A work-specific appraisal should therefore reconcile the physical object and its documentation with appropriate comparable lots.

## Appraisily data basis

Appraisily artist pages combine artist-identity research with matched public auction records, auction-house context, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lots when those records are available. Public data may omit private sales or later attribution changes.

## Sources

- Art UK: https://artuk.org/discover/artists/klee-paul-18791940
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q44007
- VIAF: https://viaf.org/viaf/68931085/
- Getty Vocabulary Program: https://vocab.getty.edu/page/ulan/500010493
- The Museum of Modern Art: https://www.moma.org/artists/3130
- Tate: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/paul-klee-1417
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Klee
- Wikipedia: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Klee
- Appraisily: https://appraisily.com/artist/paul-klee/