Paul Klee, Solution "ee." for the Birthday Task, from the portfolio for Walter Gropius, 1924 / Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, photo: Hermann Kiessling

Paul Klee, Solution "ee." for the Birthday Task, from the portfolio for Walter Gropius, 1924 Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, photo: Hermann Kiessling

Paul Klee, Solution "ee." for the Birthday Task, from the portfolio for Walter Gropius, 1924

Klee was one of the avant-garde painters who had a decisive influence on the training provided in the early Bauhaus. Klee’s picture shows a loudspeaker cone, the sound from which – visualized by a red arrow – is touching a fragile ear. A green exclamation mark signalizes that the message has been received – although it is also in the complementary colour, so that it has possibly been converted into its opposite? The poetic image, which arranges the objects as if on a stage, abstracts the structure and content of a newspaper photo. In the photo, a radio loudspeaker placed on a window ledge can be seen, which is broadcasting the results of the German elections of May 1924 towards a crowd gathered on Potsdamer Platz. The photo was used as a subject not only by Klee: László Moholy-Nagy had asked him and four other Bauhaus masters to engage with the picture in a common work to celebrate Walter Gropius’s 41st birthday. The portfolio, 1924 18/V, with the works by the six masters was presented to Gropius on 18 May 1924. It is a fascinating reflection of the whole range of artistic forms of expression that were present at the Bauhaus.

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