(December 18, 1879-June 29, 1940)
Born in Munchenbuchsee, Switzerland
Expressionist and surrealist painter
Member of the Blaue Ritter ('Blue Rider') group
Works include 'Fish Magic,' 'Viaducts Break Ranks,' 'Angelus Novus,' 'Tale a la Hoffman' and 'Twittering Machine'
Last name pronounced 'Clay'

In art school, he excelled at drawing but worried 'that I probably would never learn to paint.'
He had a son out of wedlock.
When he joined the German army in WWI, his father pulled strings to make sure he was not sent to the front.
Even though he was born and died in Switzerland, he never became a citizen.

He had a dry sense of humor.
He excelled at both art and music, playing the violin at age seven and drawing at age eight.
Rainer Marie Rilke said, 'Even if you hadn't told me he plays the violin, I would have guessed that on many occassions his drawings were transcriptions of music.'
He was extremely prolific, producing 1200 drawings and paintings in 1939 alone.
When the Nazis took power in Germany, he was fired from his teaching position at the Dusseldorf Academy and his works were denounced as 'degenerate art.'

Credit: C. Fishel

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• I Outlived My Child
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