Paul Klee at the Guggenheim Museum

More than an artist of quiet humor and poetic wit, Paul Klee, as Kagan observes, was a higly ambitious, historically conscious idealist who believed in the redeeming value of painting. That impression is confirmed by this catalogue of an exhibition at the SoHo branch of the Guggenheim Museum, Manhattan. It reproduces in color the Guggenheim's entire Klee collection--77 paintings and works on paper. Art historian Kagan ( Paul Klee: Art and Music ) follows the Swiss painter's metamorphosis from graphic artist to creator of masterworks of pure color. In her introduction, Guggenheim curator Dennison looks at Klee's art as a lifelong process of redefining themes and forms that mirrored a world of flux. An essential source on Klee's art, this album includes early satirical etchings, Bauhaus color experiments, hieroglyph-laden dreamscapes and late joyful abstractions. (Oct.)