A seven-section exhibition of the German painter Paul Klee is running in Paris’ Pompidou Center until August 1. The exhibition, entitled “Paul Klee. Irony at Work” will have a total of 230 works by the painter up on display. The main theme of the whole exhibition is the painter’s use of irony in coming up with his numerous abstractions.

Klee was born in 1879 and became an artist just in time to catch the Modernizing wave of the 19th to the 20th century. He was involved with other experimental painters such as Wassily Kandinsky and the art group – The Blue Rider. He came up with his own eclectic artistic method derived from influences such as ancient culture, music, children drawings and Bauhaus architecture. Each section of the exhibit aims to illuminate these sources of Klee’s playful creativity.

It will cover the artist’s early years, his discovery of Cubism, as well as his period after the Bauhaus influence, leading to him adding grids and squares to his work. There will also be a section on the painter’s relationship with Picasso. The seventh and last section will concentrate on the painter’s last years when he was in ill health and the Nazis came to power, putting an end to his career in his native land.

Looking through Klee’s work, one gets a sense of the artist completely enraptured by the spirit of youth, even well into his later years. The painter’s long lasting influence carried over into later experimentalists like Duchamp. He shall not be forgotten soon.

For more information on the exhibition, you can head over here.

Images courtesy of Zentrum Paul Klee