Klee, Paul - Sommeil D'Hiver (Winter Sleep). Original lithograph from Verve Magazine Volume 1, Number 3. Published by Teriade, Paris in 1938.

"Sommeil d’Hiver" (Winter Sleep) - an original lithograph by Paul Klee from Verve Volume I, Number 3 1938.

Signed in the plate.

Klee (1879 - 1940), a Swiss born, German artist, has been variously associated withExpressionism,Cubism,Futurism,Surrealism, andAbstraction, but his pictures are difficult to classify. He generally worked in isolation from his peers, and interpreted new art trends in his own way. He was inventive in his methods and technique. Klee worked in many different media—oil paint,watercolour,ink,pastel,etching, and others. He often combined them into one work. He used canvas, burlap, muslin, linen, gauze, cardboard, metal foils, fabric, wallpaper, and newsprint. Klee employed spray paint, knife application, stamping, glazing, and impasto, andmixed mediasuch as oil with watercolour, watercolour with pen and India ink.

He was a natural draftsman, and through long experimentation developed a mastery of colour and tonality. Many of his works combine these skills. He uses a great variety of colour palettes from nearlymonochromaticto highlypolychromatic. His works often have a fragile childlike quality to them and are usually on a small scale. He often used geometric forms andgrid formatcompositions as well as letters and numbers, frequently combined with playful figures of animals and people. Some works were completely abstract. Many of his works and their titles reflect his dry humour and varying moods; some express political convictions. They frequently allude to poetry, music and dreams and sometimes include words ormusical notation.