Klee Paul (1879-1940). Painter born near Berne, Switzerland. He studied in Munich (1898- 1900) under Knirr and Stuck, visited Italy (1901) and then returned to Berne (1902-6). Most of his early work was in black and white graphic media: the precision of his draughtsmanship and the recurrent Expressionist fantasy element (e.g. Inventions etchings, 1903-5) link him with the N. European tradition. K. settled in Munich in 1906 and in 1911 made contact with the *Blaue Reiter artists (Kandinsky, Marc, Маске) and contributed to their exhibition in 1912. In 1912 also he visited Paris, met *Delaunay and trs. his essay Sur la lumiere. The accumulation of his contacts with the colouristic paintings of the Blaue Reiter, and with Delaunay's *Orphism, and finally his experience of Tunis, which he visited with Маске in 1914, resulted in K.'s release from his early monochromatic discipline. He now felt ready to paint and his watercolours of 1914—16 are subtle arrangements of glowing translucent colour areas. During the war he served in the army (1916—18) and was deeply distressed by the deaths of Маске (1914) and Marc (1916). From 1920 to 1931 he taught at the *Bauhaus, Weimar and Dessau. His Pedagogical Sketchbook' was publ. in 1925 as a Bauhausbuch. The principle of his art and his influential teaching is best expressed in his own metaphor of the tree whose trunk is the artist. The pattern of growth of the roots is the pattern of nature (the artist's source of forms and ideas); this pattern is reflected in the growth of the branches and blossoms, but in this final flowering (which is the work of art) nature has been transformed by the richness of the artist's imaginative instincts. Improvisation plays an important part: the work of art is allowed, like a doodle, to follow its own evolution, subconsciously guided by the artist rather than consciously controlled. These ideas, disciplined by a rare self-knowledge and humility, which lie behind so many later developments, have made him a very influential thinker in art; the persistent quality of his prolific and varied oeuvre, exquisitely sensitive in line, colour and texture and often laced with fantasy and humour, has made him one of the c.'s most original artists. A Young Lady's Adventure (1922) shows his subtle colour, fluid line and uninhibited wit, but it is difficult to appreciate the character of his art without experiencing its full range. He left the Bauhaus (c. 1931) and held a professorship at Dusseldorf until 1933, when he was expelled by the Nazis. 102 of his works were confiscated from German museums during the Nazi regime, 17 of which were incl. in the notorious exhibition Degenerate Art (Munich, 1937). Klein Yves (1928-62). Influential French artistic iconoclast and innovator. His 'exhibition' (1958) of the bare walls of a Paris gallery rejected every painterly convention. In Anthropometries (1958-60) nude models daubed in blue (the preeminent 'cosmic' colour) imprinted themselves on canvas, to musical accompaniment. Klenze Leo von (b. 1784 Schladen, Germany, d. 1864 Munich, Germany painter). An architect, painter, and writer, Leo von Klenze is most noted for his work as court architect to Ludwig I, king of Bavaria. He designed streets, squares, and numerous monumental buildings that set the scale and tone of Munich, the Bavarian capital. His other European commissions ranged from Athens, where he was the first to take steps to preserve the Acropolis, to Saint Petersburg, Russia. In addition to building, Von Klenze studied public building finance, designed and arranged museum galleries of ancient art, and was an accomplished painter. His paintings exhibit a richness of detail and special attention to light and compositional space. He successfully combined his talent for sharp observation with an equal and complementary ability to improve upon nature. On his visits to Italy, he both drew and painted landscapes and examined the remains of Greek temples as sources for his archaeological Greek style. Klimt Gustav (1862-1918). Austrian painter and designer associated with the *Symbolist and *Jugendstil movements and a leading member of the Vienna *Sezession (1898-1903). He devoted much of his time to architectural decoration (e.g. The Kiss, mosaic for Palais Stoclet, Brussels, built by Josef Hoffmann) and considerably influenced the decorative arts in Austria. His paintings are often large allegorical canvases and portraits of women which combine linear construction and rich colours. Kline Franz (1910-62). U.S. * Abstract Expressionist painter whose stark and startling black-and-white compositions on a huge scale made him one of the most powerful exponents of the large black-and-white gesture painting. Only rarely using colour, K. produced variations, which never became a formula. He started by painting rather traditional figurative pictures. After spending most of the 1930s in Britain, he returned to the U.S.A. and settled in N.Y. At this time the change in scale and drama in his work and the development of a highly personal, abstract, gestural style made him a heroic figure. Between them, *De Kooning and K. did much to invent the rhetoric of Abstract Expressionism. Klinger Julius (1876-1942), austrian painter, draftsman, illustrator, graphic artist. Klinger Max (1857-1920). German painter, sculptor and print maker; from 1883 he worked in Paris, Berlin and Rome settling in Leipzig (1895). His works include monumental paintings on history and legend, polychrome sculptures and graphics. Among these, sensitive etchings on macabre, fantastic, surreal or symbolic themes affected later artists such as De *Chirico and *Dix. Knave of Diamonds. Group of young Russian Paris-orientated artists who rebelled against the Moscow Art School in 1909. Headed by *Larionov, they organized their 1st exhibition of the newest Franco-Russian art in 1910, including works by *Malevich, *Goncharova, etc.; exhibitions continued to be held in Moscow under this name up to 1922 though after the first, Larionov left the group, which then became synonymous with painters of the Russian Paris school such as Falk, Konchalovsky, Lentulov, Mashkov, and with the Russian Futurists. Knoop Helene. Kitsch painter Koons Jeff (born January 21, 1955) is an American artist whose work incorporates kitsch imagery using painting, sculpture, and other forms, often in large scale. Koch Joseph Anton (b Obergibeln, Tyrol, 27 July 1768; d Rome, 12 Jan 1839). Painter and writer. He was one of the most important landscape painters of the early 19th century. With his friend Johann Christian Reinhart he pioneered the ‘heroic’ landscape style by heightening the grandeur and structural clarity of classical Italianate landscapes in the tradition of Nicolas Poussin, Claude Lorrain and Gaspard Dughet. His work reflects a transitional period in European art. Largely under the influence of Asmus Carstens, Koch subscribed to many Neo-classical principles, but his work also has Romantic aspects. His interest in the natural sciences and Romantic philosophy betrayed an increasingly modern world-view, but he also embraced the medievalism of the Nazarenes. His landscape style influenced that of his friends Ferdinand Olivier and Friedrich Olivier, as well as that of Carl Philipp Fohr. Kokoschka Oskar (1886-1980). Austrian painter who studied (1905-8) in Vienna, a vital centre of new intellectual currents: Freud, Schoenberg, Kraus, Max Dvorak and Adolph Loos were there and the last three became his friends and patrons. In 1910 he went to Berlin to work on Herwarth Walden's magazine Der Sturm. His early graphic work was intensely personal, using a Klimt-like curvilinear calligraphy as an Expressionist vehicle, but the majority of his early paintings were the portraits which constitute his major achievement, Auguste Forel (1910) is typical m its concentration on bead and hands, taut draughtsmanship and in the tattoo-like incisions in the painted surface. The tone of his early work is depressed and cynical and his disgust with reality was heightened by the war. He was injured in 1915. He taught at Dresden Academy (1919-24) and then travelled in Europe, Africa and the Near East. He became a British subject in 1947 and a C.B.E. in 1959. The intense wiry complexity of his style disappeared into the solid impasto of Woman in Blue (1919), but his real release from reality came with the landscapes: the same panoramic world landscapes that Altdorfer, Bruegel and Turner painted (e.g. Polperro, Cornwall, 1939/40). They have a baroque sense of infinite space and elemental force that is also present in the Prometheus Triptych (1950). K.'s writings include a play on the Czech humanist Comenius. Kollwitz Kathe (1867-1945). German graphic-artist, sculptor and draughtsman. Her experiences as a doctor's wife in a poor district of Berlin during and after World War I resulted in her best-known work-drawings, lithographs and engravings, chiefly of the sufferings of women and children. Examples of her engravings include: 6 subjects from Gerhart Hauptmann's play 'The Weavers (exhibited 1898), Peasants War cycle (1902-8), and Run Over (1910); the posters - Never Again War!, Bread, Children Starving (all 1924); the woodcuts - War cycle (1922-3): the lithographs - Death cycle (finished 1936); and the sculptures — Father and Mother (1931). Komar & Melamid. Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid were born in Moscow, Komar on September 11, 1943 and Melamid on July 14, 1945. Both artists attended the Moscow Art School from 1958 to 1960, and the Stroganov Institute of Art & Design, Moscow, from 1962 to 1967. Their collaborative work started in 1965, and in 1967, they initiated the SOTS Art movement (the Soviet version of Western Pop Art). Their first international exhibition was at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York, in 1976. Since then, they have had numerous public commissions and exhibitions throughout the world. In 1978, Komar & Melamid became United States residents. In 1981, they were the first Russian artists to receive a National Endowment for the Arts grant. Notorious dissidents before they left the Soviet Union, the artists have since been called "exasperating expatriates" for their travesties of Socialist Realism. Konchalovsky Pyotr (b Slavyansk, Donetsk district, Ukraine, 21 Feb 1876; d Moscow, 2 Feb 1956).Russian painter of Ukrainian birth. He studied at the Académie Julian, Paris, in 1897–9 and then at the Academy of Arts, St Petersburg, in 1899. In 1908 he visited France and exhibited at the Salon d’Automne and the Salon des Indépendants, Paris. In 1909 he participated in the third Golden Fleece exhibition in Moscow and in 1910 was a founder-member of the avant-garde exhibiting society, the JACK OF DIAMONDS, of which he remained a leader until 1915. Konrad of Soest (late 14th-15th c). German painter in the soft style active in Dortmund from 1394. A signed polyptych in Niederwildungen parish church is his major work. Kooning Willem de (b. 1904, Rotterdam; d. 1997, East Hampton, New York). Willem de Kooning was born April 24, 1904, in Rotterdam. From 1916 to 1925, he studied at night at the Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten en Technische Wetenschappen, Rotterdam, while apprenticed to a commercial-art and decorating firm and later working for an art director. In 1924 he visited museums in Belgium and studied further in Brussels and Antwerp. De Kooning came to the United States in 1926 and settled briefly in Hoboken, New Jersey. He worked as a house painter before moving to New York in 1927, where he met Stuart Davis, Arshile Gorky, and John Graham. He took various commercial-art and odd jobs until 1935, when he was employed in the mural and easel divisions of the WPA Federal Art Project. Thereafter he painted full-time. In the late 1930s his abstract as well as figurative work was primarily influenced by the Cubism and Surrealism of Pablo Picasso and also by Gorky, with whom he shared a studio. In 1938 de Kooning started his first series of Women, which would become a major recurrent theme. During the 1940s he participated in group shows with other artists who would form the New York School and become known as Abstract Expressionists. De Kooning’s first solo show, which took place at the Egan Gallery, New York, in 1948, established his reputation as a major artist; it included a number of the allover black-and-white abstractions he had initiated in 1946. The Women of the early 1950s were followed by abstract urban landscapes, Parkways, rural landscapes, and, in the 1960s, a new group of Women. In 1968 de Kooning visited the Netherlands for the first time since 1926 for the opening of his retrospective at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. In Rome in 1969 he executed his first sculptures—figures modeled in clay and later cast in bronze—and in 1970–71 he began a series of life-size figures. In 1974 the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, organized a show of de Kooning’s drawings and sculpture that traveled throughout the United States, and in 1978 the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, mounted an exhibition of his recent work. In 1979 de Kooning and Eduardo Chillida received the Andrew W. Mellon Prize, which was accompanied by an exhibition at the Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh. De Kooning settled in the Springs, East Hampton, Long Island, in 1963. He was honored with a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1997. The artist died on March 19, 1997, on Long Island. Koons Jeff (1955- ). U.S. artist who came to prominence with celebrity-like status in the mid-1980s with the exhibition of consumer items such as whisky flasks and vacuum cleaners. In his Banality series (1988) popular kitsch icons were re-created with great care and expertise by traditional craftsmen operating under his instructions, e.g. The Pink Panther, Popples and Michael Jackson with a white face. Since 1989, K. has worked with Ilona Staller (La Cicciolina), who became his wife, in a series of explicitly erotic sculptures, paintings and posters all relating to their continuing project, Made in Heaven. In these works notions such as purity, sentiment and pornography become deliberately confused. In his self-promotional appearances, interviews and writings, K. is a brilliant performer whose apparent sincerity and intelligence defy comparisons with *Warhol or easy dismissal. The questions raised by K. about art practice in the 1990s challenge many assumptions, pretensions and received ideas about authenticity, originality and other value-loaded criteria. Korean art. Chinese influence, marked during the *Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), was always important. Major early works are 4th—7th-c. murals from tombs of the N. kingdom of Koguryo and Buddhist sculptures from the S.W. Paekche kingdom which influenced Japanese sculpture. *T'ang influence dominated the 'Great Silla' period which united Korea (668-918), e.g. magnificent mid-8th-c. Buddhist sculptures and reliefs. During the Koryo period (918—1392), Confucianism inspired a tradition of artist savants (*wen-jen), e.g. Kang Hui-an (1419-65). *Chinese art principles inspired painting; Chinese poetry provided themes and Chinese *Sung fantasy landscape painting subject matter. Chong Son (1676-1769) returned to Korean landscape for inspiration. Artist literateurs did elegant, calligraphic studies of bamboo, orchid, plum blossom or chrysanthemum. Official portraiture was largely stereotyped though skilful. Korovin Konstantin (b Moscow, 5 Dec 1861; d Paris, 11 Sept 1939). Brother of Sergey Korovin. In 1874 he entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where he studied under the landscape painters Aleksey Savrasov and Vasily Polenov. Through Polenov, Korovin met the art patron Savva Mamontov and became a leading member of the Abramtsevo colony, which comprised the most innovative painters and stage designers of the period. His early landscapes continued the plein-air explorations of his teachers. Travelling extensively in Europe in the 1880s and 1890s, he was influenced by French Impressionism. In the Boat (1887/8; Moscow, Tret’yakov Gal.) recalls the tilted perspective and bright colours of Edouard Manet’s Boating (1874; New York, Met.). Typical examples of Korovin’s late Impressionist style are Café in Paris (1892–4), Café in Yalta (1905) and Paris by Night; Boulevard des Italiens (1908; all Moscow, Tret’yakov Gal.). His designs for Mamontov’s Private Opera in Moscow in the 1880s and 1890s were unprecedented in Russia in their free use of colour and their departure from realism. Kortan Frank (born 1964) Koryusai Isoda (1764-1788) Japan Artist Koshimizu Susumu (born in 1944) Kosuth Joseph (1945- ). Influential U.S. *Conceptual artist whose 10 'Investigations' in the 1970s reflected the impact of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein's linguistic and epistemological theories. The manifesto, Art After Philosophy (1969), advocated the dematerialization of the art object; it was first published as an introduction to an exhibition, 'Conceptual Art and Conceptual Aspects' and proclaimed that 'Art is the definition of art'. K.'s 'Investigations' were exhibited in a variety of forms: wall panels with inscribed definitions of" art terms, texts of linguistic philosophy and theory, art magazines and words in neon. In 1970 he was the U.S. ed. of Art-Language, the magazine published by *Art & Language, and in 1975—6 co-founder of the art-political magazine, Fox. In 1988 he mounted a highly controversial installation at the Brooklyn Museum, The Play of the Unmentionable, which reflected his opposition to censorship in the arts. In it works from the permanent collection of the museum, which at various times had been considered politically or sexually objectionable, were juxtaposed with statements about art and its role. Kounellis Jannis (1936- ). Greek-born artist who moved to Rome in 1956, associated with the Italian *Arte Povera group in the late 1960s and with the process-related works of L. *Fontana, * Burri and *Manzoni. In the late 1960s he started creating evocative installations and *performances, e.g. 12 horses tethered to the walls of the Galleria L'Attico (1969). Another notable work of the same year was Porta Murata, a doorway filled with stone rubble, and then in 1970 Woman with Blanket, Flame and Motivo Africano. In the late 1970s K. started introducing in his work references to European history — cast fragments of classical sculpture and Byzantine motifs - and to early 20th-c. art. In the mid-1980s he made a series of 'Accumulations', fragments of objects, casts, clothes, stones, etc. mounted on large sheet metal, displayed on walls, like paintings. He has also continued making site-specific installations using burlap sacks, wooden barriers, shelves, wax, charcoal, wool. etc. in works with a mysterious, suggestive power — evocations of a longed-for historical and cultural continuity. Kovacic Mijo (Yugoslavian, 1935). Hlebine school.Croatian group of painters Kranichfeld Katharina. Erotic Art. Krakow group [Pol. Grupa Krakowska]. Polish group of avant-garde artists, initially active in 1933–9 and later revived. Based in Kraków, the group included young painters and sculptors, students and graduates of the Academy of Fine Arts, Kraków: Sasza Blonder, B. Grünberg, Maria Jarema, L. Lewicki, S. Osostowicz, S. Piasecki, B. Stawinski, J. Stern, Henryk Wicinski, and A. Winnicki, as well as more loosely affiliated members: F. Jazwiecki and Adam Marczynski. The group arose from a larger students’ group, Zywi, with 30 members, founded in the academy in early 1932, which developed in reaction to the conservative teaching methods, as well as in response to the political atmosphere of the 1930s and its effect after the collapse of various Constructivist groupings. The Kraków group, whose membership was affiliated to the Academic Left and the already-banned Polish Communist Party, defined its activities as revolutionary, pro-proletarian and anti-nationalist. The young artists were related by a free, liberal artistic programme, and their activities came into conflict with the authorities of the academy, who had recourse to expulsions and permitted police interventions and arrests at academy exhibitions. The artists associated with the working-class movement and the trade union movement employed the slogan ‘proletarian arts’ but, unlike the Constructivist group, forbore to define their programme. Their main aim was the defence of their threatened freedoms, and thus, for example, they responded to the call directed to all artists on 1 May 1934 to form ‘a common front in opposition to the Fascisization of life in Poland, and to threats against independent creativity’. Kroyer Peder Severin (b Stavanger, 23 July 1851; d Skagen, 21 Nov 1909). Danish painter, sculptor and draughtsman. He was a leading member of the artists’ colony at SKAGEN in Jutland and a sought-after portrait painter, noted for his treatment of light and colour. Kruger Barbara (1945- ). U.S. *Postmodernist artist and writer, of primarily black-and-white *photomontages which carry messages challenging and deconstructing sexual stereotyping and domination, and the usually unchallenged assumption that images are neutral in terms of meaning, e.g. (Untitled ('Your gaze hits the side of my face') and Untitled ('Yon construct intricate rituals which allow yon to touch the skin of other men') (both 1981). Krystufek Elke. (b. Austria, 1970) is a contemporary Austrian artist who creates self portraiture in a variety of media. Krystufek studied at the Fine Arts Academy of Vienna in the early 1990s. Her work is informed by a history of Austrian artists - from Egon Schiele to the Vienna Actionists - who have explicitly explored sexuality in art. Krystufek works across a variety of performative media including photographs, videos, paintings, and mannequin installations. Her work often involves issues of narcissism and self-censorship in the audience, by fusing popular culture with a personal sexual iconography. In 2000 one of her self-portrait masturbation video art works was cited in a French court case that eventually led to the gallery curators concerned being brought before the courts in December 2006. Kubin Alfred (1877-1959). Austrian painter and graphic artist associated with the *Blaue Reiter group. His choice of subject matter particularly in his graphic work of the early 1900s was grotesque, even repulsive. He wrote and ill. a Surrealistic novel Die andere Seite (1909) which led him to concentrate on book ilk, e.g. works by d'Aurevilly, Dostoyevsky, Nerval and Рое. Kukowski Jaroslaw (born on 11 April 1972 in Tczew) Polish contemporary painter. Kunichika Toyohara (1835-1900) Japan Artist Kunisada Utagawa (1786-1864) Japan Artist Kuniyoshi Utagawa  (1797-1861) Japan Artist Kupka Frantisek (1871-1957). Czech painter who arrived in Paris (1894) via the academies of Prague and Vienna. He is historically important for the paintings he made с 1910. These reveal the emancipation of pure colour areas from any descriptive role and are among the first abstract paintings in Paris, probably preceding and inspiring the similar developments in Delaunay's painting. From 1931 he was connected with the * Abstraction-Creation group in Pans. Kushan. N. Indian empire at its height in the 1st-2nd cs AD, stretching from Afghanistan to the upper Ganges and its tributaries. It was a formative period in Buddhist, Jain and Hindu sculpture. The chief centres were *Gandhara, Mathura on the upper Jumna river, and Bamiyan, Surkh Kotal, Hadda and Fondukistan, all in Afghanistan. Kusnetsov Pavel (1878-1968). Soviet painter, a founder-member of the *Blue Rose group and with Saryan its most distinguished artist. His most characteristic works depict the Kirghiz people and countryside, such as Mirage in the Steppes (1912) painted in a Symbolist blue-green palette; in later years his colours became brilliant and his subjects less exotic. Kustodiev Boris (b Astrakhan, 7 March 1878; d Leningrad [now St Petersburg], 26 May 1927).Russian painter and stage designer. While studying at the Astrakhan Theological School, he was impressed in 1887 by an exhibition of the Russian Realist painters, the Wanderers, and he subsequently decided to become a painter. In 1896 he enrolled at the Academy of Arts, St Petersburg, where he studied with Il’ya Repin. In 1904 he studied briefly in Paris under René Menard (1869–1930) and travelled to Spain, where he especially admired the paintings of Diego Velázquez. Like Andrey Ryabushkin before him, Kustodiyev concentrated on painting Russian provincial festivities, as in Shrovetide (1916; St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.). But in his paintings of the merchant class Kustodiyev added a new note of satire. Using the bright reds and blues of Russian folk art, he delighted in painting the merchants’ plump wives in their leisure activities. One of his most striking images is Merchant’s Wife Drinking Tea (1918; St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.), where the ample figure dominates the tea table and the surrounding area by her bulk and her self-satisfied expression. She is as round and as succulent as the fruit on the table. This work, like many others, has an oriental richness of colour that Kustodiyev saw as part of his Astrakhan heritage.