Case report on the illness of paul klee (1879-1940)

Abstract

This article reports on the disease that afflicted Paul Klee, the famous artist. He died before the disease that killed him could be properly diagnosed. There was some conjecture afterwards that he may have suffered from scleroderma. The thorough and diligent research the author of this article has carried out over many years allows him to argue that Paul Klee was suffering from this autoimmune disease since 1935. With a degree of probability that borders on certainty, it seems that the artist suffered from 'diffuse systemic sclerosis', and it is from this, the most severe form of the rare autoimmune disease, that he died in 1940.

Fig. 1

Paul Klee, 1939, photograph by Walter Henggeler, Keystone, Zürich.

Fig. 2

Paul Klee, Marked man, 1935, 146, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf.

Fig. 3

Paul Klee, The eye, 1938, 315. Private collection, Switzerland, on extended loan to the Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern.

Fig. 4

Paul Klee, Suddenly rigid, 1940, 205, Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern.

Fig. 5

Paul Klee, ecce …., 1940, 138, Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern. Livia Klee Donation.