Street Children (Gassenkinder)

Street Children (Gassenkinder) by Paul Klee, created in 1912, represents an early engagement with printmaking that would become foundational to the artist’s later career. Classified as a lithograph, this German work positions itself within the growing interest among modernist artists in reproducible media. Executed just before the major shifts brought on by World War I, the piece belongs to the nascent period of Expressionism, reflecting a departure from traditional academic representation toward a more emotionally resonant aesthetic.

The medium of the print required Klee to work directly with line and form, emphasizing sharp contrast and minimal shading. This technique lends a stark, immediate quality to the depiction of the figures. While Klee would become recognized later for his abstract explorations of color and line following his pivotal trip to Tunisia in 1914, he frequently utilized his technical skills as a draftsman during this period to capture figurative subjects and urban scenes. The graphic approach in Street Children (Gassenkinder) allows Klee to convey the youthful figures using bold, characteristic angularity, elements that distinctly foreshadow his mature style and his eventual affiliation with the Bauhaus.

The subject matter, focusing on marginalized youths, offers valuable insight into the social observations Klee made during this critical year of 1912. The cultural environment of the German art scene at this time heavily influenced the work, which captures a specific social reality inherent to a rapidly industrializing nation.

As one of his significant early prints, Street Children (Gassenkinder) demonstrates the young artist's experimental approach to the lithograph process, bridging his early fidelity to drawing and his future mastery of abstraction. The work is now held in the prestigious collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), recognizing its importance both within Klee’s overall development and the history of modern graphic arts.