Vision (1937)

In the mid-twenties, Klie spent two years in Paris, where he was introduced to modern art. On his return home, as a member of the New Artists' Association, he became one of the most important representatives of progressive art between the two wars. In his early work he absorbed a variety of modern influences, being influenced by German Expressionism, Expressionism, naïve painting, Art Deco and Italian pittura metafisica. The phantasmagoria of his dream world, however, did not derive from external stylistic influences, but from the inner depths of his soul. From World War I onwards, he had visions and attended spiritualistic séances. His series of visions, painted in watercolour around 1936, is a unique blend of dream, desire, memory and eroticism, which are typical of the Surrealist toolkit.