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Paul Klee (1879-1940) experimented with many different artistic styles, from expressionism and surrealism to abstract art and cubism. He painted some 8,926 artworks, 4,000 of which can be found at the Paul Klee Centre in Bern. Though Klee's works have been universally lauded since his death, he did not always face such rave reviews in life.
When it seized power in 1933, Germany's Nazi Party castigated the art of Klee and his compatriot Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (profiled last month in Swiss News), who lived in exile in Davos. Nazi catalogues described an exhibit showcasing a sampling of Klee's 'degenerate' art as "the work of a sick mind".
