Among the best known artists of the time, Paul Klee was known for his childlike and yet complex renderings of murals and bold artwork in a regime which found both to be ridiculous and degenerate. Klee was among the artists featured in the Entarte Kunste, or "Degenerate Art" exhibit sponsored by the Reichkunstkammer(sp), which sought to show the degenerative influence of Jewish art on the German community, which they considered the artistic manifestation of 'Bolshevism' [communism]. Klee was a Jewish artist who had been influenced by and instrumental in the Bauhaus which encouraged artists to boldly pursue new ways of looking at art and design. Since he departed from traditional form and subject matter, he fell into the category 'muralist' although his outlook on art in general was more expansive and included new perspectives in the way art and its subject matter was conceived and viewed.

Klee was born in Münchenbuchssee on December 18, 1879, the son of a German Music teacher. In 1898, he studied Art in Munich and by 1912 moved to Paris where he became acquainted with Picasso, already a renown artist. He became a Master at the Bauhaus, but because the Bauhaus with its avant garde methods and concepts fell into disfavor with Hitler, it was moved first, and later closed, at which poing Klee moved to Switzerland. While becoming quite well known himself because of his child-like renderings in murals, by 1937, the Third Reich confiscated 102 of his paintings and other works as "unworthy of public display". He died in June 29, 1940, in Muralto near Locarno. Like several other exiled artists, he remained outspoken not only about Art and its philosophies, but stood against the policies of the Reich as well.