You don’t want a painting that looks like it is done from a photograph because the colors are often times generic and plane while the figures looks flat. I focus on making the portraits as realistic as possible by working from real life in my downtown studio.

The process consists of an initial meeting ideally in my studio to decide upon the subject matter. If that is not possible, we can speak over the phone or wherever is most convenient. We will go over examples of beautifully painted portraits from famous painters to get an idea of what your tastes might be as far as the setup and look of the work. We will then do a session where I sketch a preliminary pencil drawing or drawings to further establish an understanding of the desired portrait composition. Once the composition is established, we may begin the sittings at the sitter’s convenience.

Ideally, a session last 3 hours with 5 minute breaks every 25 minutes. It normally takes me between 10 and 15 sittings to complete a portrait. During the sessions, I love to talk to the sitter and listen to music the sitter desires because I understand that for some, the idea of sitting for a portrait isn’t fun. It is also okay to take breaks outside of the break period and to stretch whenever needed. I want the sitter to be comfortable.

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Klee was born in 1879 in Münchenbuchsee, near Bern, Switzerland, the second child of Hans Klee, a German music teacher, and a Swiss mother. His training as a painter began in 1898 when he studied drawing and painting in Munich for three years. By 1911, he had returned to that city, where he became involved with the German Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), founded by Vasily Kandinsky and Franz Marc in 1911. Klee and Kandinsky became lifelong friends, and the support of the older painter provided much-needed encouragement. Until then, Klee had worked in relative isolation, experimenting with various styles and media, such as making caricatures and Symbolist drawings, and later producing small works on paper mainly in black and white. His work was also influenced by the Cubism of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, and the abstract translucent color planes of Robert Delaunay.

In 1920, Walter Gropius invited Klee to join the faculty of the Bauhaus. A school of architecture and industrial design operating first in Weimar (1919–25) and then Dessau (1925–32), it also included the study of arts and crafts. Nearly half of Klee’s some 10,000 works (mainly small-scale watercolors and drawings on paper) were produced during the ten years he taught at the Bauhaus, and they vary widely. Some relate to the subject of his courses, to his preoccupation with the relationship of colors, such as Static-Dynamic Gradation, produced in 1923 (1987.455.12). In the same year, Klee painted Ventriloquist and Crier in the Moor (1984.315.35), which, with its humor and grotesque fantasy, may strike many viewers as the quintessential “Klee.”

From 1931 to December 1933, Klee taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf. When the National Socialists declared his art “degenerate” in 1933, Klee returned to his native Bern. Personal hardship and the increasing gravity of the political situation in Europe are reflected in the somber tone of his late work. Lines turn into black bars, forms become broad and generalized, scale larger, and colors simpler.

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Ventriloquist and Crier in the Moor is a watercolor, ink painting created by Paul Klee in 1923. It lives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Paul Klee was a Swiss painter of German nationality. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was also a student of orientalism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented with and eventually mastered color theory, and wrote extensively about it; his lectures on form and design theory, published in English as the Paul Klee Notebooks, are considered so important for modern art that is compared to the importance that Leonardo’s A Treatise on Painting had for Renaissance. He and his colleague, the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, both taught at the German Bauhaus school of art, design, and architecture. His works reflect his dry humor and his sometimes child-like perspective, his personal moods and beliefs, and his musicality. His work influenced all later 20th-century surrealist and nonobjective artists and was a prime source for the budding abstract expressionist movement.

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In 1919, Klee applied for a teaching post at the Academy of Art in Dusseldorf. This attempt failed but he had a major success in securing a three-year contract (with a minimum annual income) with dealer Hans Goltz, whose influential gallery gave Klee major exposure, and some commercial success. A retrospective of over 300 works in 1920 was also notable.

Klee taught at the Bauhaus from January, 1921 to April, 1931. He was a “Form” master in the bookbinding, stained glass, and mural painting workshops and was provided with two studios. In 1922, Kandinsky joined the staff and resumed his friendship with Klee. Later that year the first Bauhaus exhibition and festival was held, for which Klee created several of the advertising materials. And in the same year, the first series of Bauhaus books is published with works by Gropius (International Architecture), Paul Klee, Adolf Meyer, Oskar Schlemmer, and Piet Mondrian. Klee welcomed that there were many conflicting theories and opinions within the Bauhaus: “I also approve of these forces competing one with the other if the result is achievement.”

Klee was also a member of Die Blaue Vier (The Blue Four), with Kandinsky, Feininger, and Jawlensky; formed in 1923, they lectured and exhibited together in the USA in 1925. That same year, Klee had his first exhibits in Paris, and he became a hit with the French Surrealists. Klee visited Egypt in 1928, which impressed him less than Tunisia. In 1929, the first major monograph on Klee’s work was published, written by Will Grohmann.

Klee also taught at the Dusseldorf Academy from 1931 to 1933, and was singled out by a Nazi newspaper, “Then that great fellow Klee comes onto the scene, already famed as a Bauhaus teacher in Dessau. He tells everyone he’s a thoroughbred Arab, but he’s a typical Galician Jew.” His home was searched by the Gestapo and he was fired from his job. His self-portrait Struck from the List(1933) commemorates the sad occasion. In 1933-4, Klee had shows in London and Paris, and finally met Pablo Picasso, whom he greatly admired. The Klee family emigrated to Switzerland in late 1933.

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Klee spent much of his adult life teaching at various universities and art schools, including the German Bauhaus School of Art and Düsseldorf Academy. During his tenure at Düsseldorf, he was singled out as a Jew by the Nazi party. The Gestapo searched his home and he was fired from his job. Some of his later works were also seized by the Nazis.

Although the artist was born in Switzerland, he was not born a Swiss citizen. His father was a German national, and citizenship being decided on paternity, Klee was born a German citizen. His request for Swiss citizenship was not granted until six days after his untimely death from undiagnosed scleroderma. Klee’s legacy includes over 9,000 works of art, which have inspired many other painting and musical compositions. In 1938 he was immortalized by Steinway Pianos in their “Paul Klee Series” pianos.

Around 1897, Klee started his diary, which he kept until 1918, and which has provided scholars with valuable insight into his life and thinking. During his school years, he avidly drew in his school books, in particular drawing caricatures, and already demonstrating skill with line and volume. He barely passed his final exams at the “Gymnasium” of Bern, where he qualified in the Humanities. With his characteristic dry wit, he wrote, “After all, it’s rather difficult to achieve the exact minimum, and it involves risks.” On his own time, in addition to his deep interests in music and art, Klee was a great reader of literature, and later a writer on art theory and aesthetics.

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