Grave of Paul Klee

History of the work

The grave of Paul Klee and his family in the Schosshalde cemetery is easy to miss. The city's cemetery brochure describes a plain, flat bronze plate that gives little hint of who lies here. It bears a text Klee wrote in 1920; it begins with the sentence 'Diesseitig bin ich gar nicht fassbar' (In this world I cannot be grasped at all). Who designed the plate is not known.

Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee on 18 December 1879 and grew up in Bern. In 1906 he moved to Germany, where he became known as a painter. After the National Socialists came to power he was suspended from teaching at the Düsseldorf art academy; at the end of 1933 he and his wife Lily returned to Bern. Klee remained a German citizen all his life. His application for Swiss citizenship was never decided: he died on 29 June 1940 in a clinic in Muralto in Ticino, a week before the meeting at which Bern's municipal council intended to rule on it.

The text on the plate was added in 1946 by his son Felix Klee. It had first appeared in 1920 in the catalogue of his large solo exhibition at the art dealer Goltz. According to the Klee biographer Susanna Partsch, the text shows Klee as he himself wished to be seen. Lily Klee died in Bern in September 1946.

Only a stone's throw from the grave rise the three hills of the Zentrum Paul Klee, which opened in 2005. The grave numbers reveal a neighbourhood: Klee's grave is number 9002/00 0161, and number 9002/00 0162 is the grave of the surgeon Maurice Edmond Müller, who founded the centre. From the grave the three hills of the museum building are clearly visible.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Stadt Bern: Kunstwerke im öffentlichen Raum (opendata.swiss) · Wikipedia (de): Paul Klee · NDB: Klee, Paul · Stadtgrün Bern: Broschüre Schosshaldenfriedhof (2023) · Stadt Bern: Persönlichkeiten und Prominenz auf dem Schosshaldenfriedhof · Wikipedia (de): Schosshaldenfriedhof · Wikipedia (en): Schosshalden cemetery · Wikimedia Commons: Foto