OSU Memorial Union Art Gallery features ‘Paul Klee's Images and Children's Art'

By John Ginn

The Entertainer

An exhibit contrasting studied simplicity with the unfettered creativity of children will adorn the walls of OSU's Memorial Union Gallery from May 27 to July 30.

"Paul Klee's Images and Children's Art" presents reproductions of Klee's artwork alongside children's drawings that influenced his work. Also included in the exhibit are a group of paintings created by Corvallis elementary school children who were asked in turn to draw their inspiration from viewing Klee's work.

There will be an opening reception for the exhibit from 4 to 6 p.m. Thursday, May 27, in the MU Concourse Gallery.

Destined to become one of the forerunners and masters of modern art, Klee began his studies in 1898 when he moved from his native Switzerland to the booming art center that was Munich in 1898. Through his studies and travels through Italy and France, he gathered inspiration in many of the new schools of art that were blossoming at the time.

In 1912, he became a member of Kandinsky's "Blaue Reiter" group, which looked for inspiration in the primal expressions found in primitive cave paintings, tribal artwork and the artwork of children.

Modeling his work on a volume of children's drawings published in Munich in 1877 and 1905, Klee embarked on a lifelong process of simplifying his work. Klee stripped out every unnecessary detail, to draw the world as children did: the flatness of presentation, the de-emphasis of important features, the discarding of other details altogether.

To do so was not as easy as it might seem. Klee was no longer a child and knew far too much about art. Any attempt to merely imitate children's drawings would come off as parody. The struggle of Klee's work was to combine the simplicity of the children's drawings with the classical techniques he'd already learned.

In her notes for the exhibit catalog, exhibit curator Rachel Kroupp notes: "Klee's use of children's drawing forms allowed him to convey messages that were sophisticated, comic, dramatic and tragic."

In his diary, Klee wrote, "Do not laugh, reader! Children have great artistic ability, and they have wisdom."

Klee continued to paint in a child-like style until his death in 1940. One of his final drawings is perhaps the final essence of what he was searching for, consisting merely of a swirled, open circle, a dot, a smudge of paint within the circle representing his illness, all propped on two stick legs with chicken feet.

As part of the exhibition, OSU School of Education interns Heather Peterson and Paula Tereault worked with faculty member Nell O'Malley to incorporate art lessons based on Klee's work into their student teaching assignments with second and third graders at Hoover elementary school in Corvallis and Territorial elementary school in Junction City.

Many of Klee's discoveries about children's art and symbolic development are exemplified in the children's paintings seen in the exhibit. They show how Klee's decisions about drawing topics and style cross cultural lines and display distinct developmental phases.

Kroupp is a visiting professor in the OSU College of Education. She is a professor of art education at Kaye Academic College of Education in Beer Sheva, Israel. Kent Sumner, marketing coordinator for the Memorial Union, invited her to bring the exhibit to OSU and handled organizational duties.

The opening reception will feature guided art activities for children ages 3 to 11 with Peterson and Tereault. Barbara Sobo Gast from the OSU Craft Center will present a gallery talk and slide show on Klee's work. Beth Rietveld will provide piano accompaniment for the reception.

The Memorial Union Concourse Gallery is open 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to midnight Saturday and 10:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday.

For more information, contact Kent Sumner at 737-8511.