Article: Paul Klee Prints: Colour, Line and Play — Which Klee for Which Room
Paul Klee Prints: Colour, Line and Play — Which Klee for Which Room
This article is part of our Ultimate Fine Art Print Buyer's Guide.
Paul Klee is one of the easiest modern artists to live with and one of the hardest to choose from. He made close to ten thousand works, in almost every medium, and they do not look like the work of one person. A Klee colour grid and a Klee angel have almost nothing in common on a wall. Pick the wrong kind for the room and a great artist looks like a random abstract print.
In brief: Most Klee prints fall into three families. The colour grids — squares and patches of colour — calm a room and work anywhere Josef Albers would. The little cities — towns, roofs and buildings made of coloured blocks — are the warmest and most decorative, and the natural choice above a sofa. The line figures — angels, heads, animals, drawn in a few lines — are witty and personal, and suit a study, a hallway or a child's room. Choose the family first, then the picture.
Who Klee was, briefly
Paul Klee (1879–1940) was born near Bern in Switzerland, trained in Munich, and spent his early career as a draughtsman and etcher who did not think of himself as a colourist. That changed on a trip to Tunisia in 1914, when he wrote in his diary that colour had taken possession of him: "Colour and I are one. I am a painter."
From 1921 to 1931 he taught at the Bauhaus, the German school of art and design, alongside Kandinsky, Moholy-Nagy and the young Josef Albers. His teaching notes — about how lines move, how colours sit next to each other, how a picture is built — are still used in art schools. He described drawing as taking a line for a walk, and you can see that in almost everything he made.
That mix of rigour and play is what makes Klee work in a home. His pictures are carefully built, so they look considered. But they are rarely solemn, so they are easy to live with.
The three Klees
1. The colour grids
These are the Klees closest to the Bauhaus classroom: squares and patches of colour, where the subject is how one colour changes the colour beside it. Colour Chart is the boldest — a bright chequerboard. Polyphonic Architecture is warmer and more layered, and Colours from a Distance is the quietest, a dark field of tiny coloured marks. All three are presented as exhibition-style posters, with Klee's name set on the sheet, which suits a modern room well.
They do the same job as a colour-field painting but with a hand-made warmth — the squares are painted, not ruled. That makes them easier than a hard-edged geometric print in rooms with natural wood, linen and plants. If you already like Albers, these are the natural next step; our guide to Homage to the Square explains the colour ideas the two men shared.
Room: living room, dining room, a calm bedroom. Tip: pick the print by the two or three colours already in the room — a sofa, a rug, a wall — and let the grid pull them together. Frame: natural oak or white.
2. The little cities
Klee kept returning to towns: roofs, towers, walls and windows, all built from coloured blocks as if by a child with very good taste. Colourful Architecture, City R and Ascent of a Town are good examples.
These are the most decorative Klees and the most forgiving. They have enough colour to lift a plain room and enough structure to hold a large wall. Several of our Klee prints are also available in a wide panoramic format — Blue Night and Rainy Day among them — which is the easiest shape to hang above a sofa, a bed or a sideboard.
Room: living room, open-plan spaces, above a bed. Frame: black or walnut, which sharpens the blocks of colour.
3. The line figures
The third Klee is the one with a sense of humour. Heads, animals, performers and, late in his life, angels — drawn in a few lines, often over a simple wash of colour. Angel Applicant, Athlete's Head, Comedian's Handbill and A Pride of Lions show the range.
These are personal pictures. They are the ones guests ask about, and they suit rooms that feel like the owner's own: a study, a hallway, a reading corner, a child's room that should still look grown-up. They work at modest sizes and are good in groups of two or three.
Room: study, hallway, bedroom, nursery. Frame: black or white, kept simple so the line does the work.
Size: why Klee needs more help than most
Klee worked small. Many of his originals are smaller than a sheet of office paper, and he was happy for them to be looked at up close. On a modern wall at that size, a Klee reads as a postcard.
The rule we use everywhere applies here: art above furniture should span roughly 60 to 75 per cent of the furniture's width. For a colour grid or a city above a three-seat sofa, that means a large single print or a panoramic. For a line figure, it means either going larger than feels natural or grouping two or three together so they read as one arrangement. What Art Print Size Should I Buy for My Sofa, Bed, or Dining Room Wall? has the measurements.
Paper
Klee painted on almost anything — burlap, newspaper, gauze, chalk grounds — and the surface is part of the picture. A glossy poster flattens that. Our Klee prints are made on Hahnemühle fine art paper with archival pigment inks, a matte surface that keeps the colour soft and lets the marks of the brush show. Textured Fine Art Paper vs Smooth Matte Paper explains how paper surface changes a print.
Where to start: three prints, one wall
If you want Klee but do not want to make three decisions, start with the Klee Statement Trio — On the Current, Six Thresholds and Polyphonic Architecture, chosen to hang together. Three prints in matching frames above a sofa or along a hallway look deliberate in a way a single small print rarely does.
Klee is also one of the best answers to a question we are asked often — how to make a rented or plain space feel designed. What Art Prints Make an Apartment Look Cool? and What Kind of Wall Art Makes a Home Look More Expensive? go further.
If you want to go wider
Klee sits inside a larger story. The Bauhaus & Modernist collection holds his colleagues — Kandinsky, Moholy-Nagy, Albers — and the school's famous exhibition posters. If it is the lightness you like, Playful Art Prints runs across artists and periods; if it is the colour, try Bold Art Prints.
Summary: Decide which Klee you want before you decide which picture. Colour grids for calm rooms and for people who like Albers. Little cities for big walls and panoramic spaces above furniture. Line figures for personal rooms, in groups of two or three. Then go one size larger than your instinct.
