Paul Klee had an inordinate impact on modern art in the United States, even though he never touched foot in this country or showed any interest in American culture of the early 20th century.

Not that the Swiss-German modernist thumbed his nose at the New Worldfar from it. Primitive figures and cryptic symbols reminiscent of Native American art leap out of his abstract paintings and drawings. The titles often suggest European themes, even if these names don't always seem to be replicated in the works.

Dadaist? Surrealist? Expressionist? This influential artist was part of all these movements, and yet took these styles a step beyond with his uniquely creative and enigmatic works.

To Americans hankering for modernism beyond geometric abstraction and other derivative styles, Klee's exuberant experiments and sense of childlike joy and playfulness have always been a revelationputting him in the same league with Picasso, Matisse and a handful of other giants of the avant-garde.

A collection of more than 60 of his paintings and drawings, ''Klee and America,'' go on display today at the Neue Galerie in New York. The superb exhibition shows his impact on, and the admiration he enjoyed, in the continent he never visited.

Actor's Mask, a primitive face with bright red hair and slits for eyes, seen on the show's poster, exemplifies the mystery that is the hallmark of Klee's artistic achievement.

Loaned by private collections and museums in the United States and abroad, the works are on display until May 22 at the gallery that specializes in German-Austrian art. Then the exhibition travels to the Phillips Collection in Washington and the Menil Collection in Houston. It's billed as the first large-scale exhibition of Klee's works in the United States in almost two decades.

The works were selected for their American showing by Josef Helfenstein, director of the Menil Collection and a native of Switzerland. Owners of works shown have included author Ernest Hemingway, architect Philip Johnson and artist Andy Warhol.

Many of the works were brought to the United States during the 1930s by German-Jewish art dealers fleeing the Third Reich. Klee's works were branded ''degenerate'' by the Nazis, who forced his removal from his art-school post in Duesseldorf in 1933. He then emigrated to Switzerland, where he died in 1940 at age 60.

Swiss born, Klee produced around 10,000 works in his career, which was mostly spent in Munich and other German art centers. His pianist wife, Lily, was the family breadwinner until Klee found success in gallery sales as he approached 40. Colorful patterns of lines and dots, sketches of flowers and animals and urban skylines are among the themes of his works.

Hemingway purchased Klee's Monument Under Construction (1929) in Paris. The watercolor on plaster-primed paper depicts the sculpture of a huge, primitive face with piercing blue eyes, with two workers climbing a scaffold and ladders. It suggests a dictator in the fascist mode. The painting now belong to a private collection in New York.

Sacred Islands, an intricate pattern on a blue background dating from 1926, was shown at the Museum of Modern Art's Klee exhibition in 1930, MoMA's first devoted to a living artist. The watercolor and pen on paper, mounted on cardboard, was donated by Johnson.

Helfenstein said Klee's paintings, which often sold for no more than $15-$25 in the 1920s and 1930s, can now command $7 million or more, though they rarely appear on the market.

 
by David Minthorn, Copyright 2006 Associated Press


All images courtesy of Neue Galerie (top to bottom): The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Berggruen Klee Collection; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection; The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; Private collection; Private collection