Paul Klee is one of the most significant artists of the first half of the 20th century. His artistic lifework comprises some 10,000 works. Important groups of works were created in Berne and environs, and many of Klee’s works have remained here – with his direct descendants, at the Paul-Klee-Stiftung (Paul Klee Foundation, 1947–2004) or with private collectors. A large part of this oeuvre has been brought together at the Zentrum Paul Klee and made accessible to the general public.

With around 4,000 works the Zentrum Paul Klee boasts the world’s most important collection of paintings, watercolours and drawings by Paul Klee as well as a great deal of biographical material in text and picture form.

The collection is also noteworthy for the private exhibits it contains, such as the puppets Paul Klee made for his son Felix or the notes he used when teaching at the Bauhaus, which provide an insight into the artists’ workshop.

Klee’s collection of natural history objects (dried plants, sea shells, snail’s shells, stones, minerals) and his manuscripts provide the link between the art collection and the life of Paul Klee himself. Works by artists of Klee’s acquaintance, such as Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc and Alexei Jawlensky, which were given to Klee as personal gifts and which are also to be found at the Zentrum Paul Klee, serve to situate Paul Klee’s work within the artistic context of his day.

Klee’s pictorial ideas are closely linked with aspects of language, theatre and music. They address themes such as architecture, technology, contemporary history and the history of creation, and engage with concepts of natural science, philosophy and psychology. The findings Klee derived from his theoretical and didactic writings were later reflected in his works.