« Nulla dies sine linea. La production artistique de Klee en 1939 »

Within Klee’s artistic career, the year 1939 is exceptional for the remarkable intensity of his creative drive, as reflected in a “record performance” of 1,253 works. Fully one quarter of his total output dates from the last four years of his life, after his health situation improved temporarily in 1937. On 10 May 1940, when Klee was admitted to a sanatorium in Ticino, he had already entered 366 works – the number of days in a leap year. 1940 was in fact a leap year, as alluded to explicitly by a key work of this period, Still Life on Leap Day. When Klee journeyed to Ticino, where he died on 29 June 1940, he may have experienced a foreboding that he would never return to Bern. As a precaution, he entered 366 works in his oeuvre catalogue before his departure, although there were actually several more. By rounding it out to this symbolic number, he was able to assure himself that in this year as well, he had remained true to his motto Nulla dies sine linea (No day without a line). Klee’s motto surfaces already in the oeuvre catalogue of 1938, where it is noted – not accidentally – after the work number 365. Klee apparently understood his maxim as meaning that he wished to avoid allowing a single day to pass without completing at least one drawing.