Annabelle B. Berghof

This article investigates Paul Klee’s titles, recognized as some of the most unique and inventive in 20th century art, as integral parts of his works that extended their visual claims in an often self-referential manner. Recent studies of the artist’s frequent re-engagements with his own oeuvre have included discussions of how the artist retitled works that he repainted or otherwise altered years after their initial completion and registration in his personal catalogue. This research has indicated the importance of considering Klee’s titling as a dynamic process that evolved alongside the artist’s famously varied practices of composing images. The present study borrows from psychoanalysis and structuralist literary theory to develop the notion of a “processual” aspect of Klee’ s titles that changed throughout his life. Given the scope of the artist’s work and thought, this analysis is a punctual one, closely examining work from two significant moments in the history of Klee’s titling practices: the artist’s retitling of earlier work during the immediate aftermath of the First World War, and his employment of series titles in the year 1939, shortly before Klee’s death in exile.