Flora Klee-Palyi - an almost forgotten artist from Wuppertal

Guest professor Agathe Mareuge researches the life and work of the Hungarian illustrator, translator and editor of French poetry who lived in Wuppertal

She lived in a villa in Boltenbergstraße in Wuppertal Sonnborn for over thirty years. Many artists socialised with her, she worked with some of them and she was culturally and socially active in Wuppertal from the 1920s to the 1950s: Flora Klee-Palyi. And yet the name is completely unknown to many people in the valley. Dr Agathe Mareuge, the first Maurice Halbwachs Visiting Professor at the University of Wuppertal, wants to finally change that. The ambitious Frenchwoman has been teaching and researching the life and work of this fascinating woman in the valley since September 2023. At her suggestion, the university library has now added Klee-Palyi's works to the documents already in the city archive by purchasing a collection of poetry volumes.

It all began in Hungary

Flora Palyi was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1883. She came from a middle-class Jewish family and studied in Geneva and Lausanne in French-speaking Switzerland at a young age, reports Mareuge. "Then she came to Munich. Munich in the 1920s was of course an important place for the cultural scene. It was also where she had her very first exhibition after training as a graphic artist and book designer and where she met her future husband, Philipp Klee. In 1927, he got a job as head physician at what was then the Ferdinand Sauerbruch Clinic in Elberfeld. This is how they both came to Wuppertal."

International contacts and first exhibition in Wuppertal

"I'm interested in her multifaceted work," says Mareuge, "but her life is also fascinating. Just the way she travelled back and forth between countries at the time. She was often in Paris, very well connected and she knew many artists." She continued all her activities until her death, designing books, making linocuts, translating and writing essays. "She was very versatile and never gave up on one aspect." Klee-Palyi was able to realise her first exhibition in Wuppertal as early as 1930. "At that time, the Von der Heydt Museum as we know it today did not yet exist, but she exhibited in the Kupferstichkabinett of the Elberfeld Museum, later in the Kunststube Leithäuser in the Turmhof and then in the Wuppertal Kunst- und Museumsverein," reports the academic.

Deportation to Theresienstadt

However, there was also a sad, difficult phase in the life of the interesting illustrator. In poor health, the Jewish woman, who was married in a so-called "mixed marriage", only just survived the Holocaust. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, both she and her husband were no longer able to work freely. "The mere fact that Phillip Klee was not Jewish probably saved her," surmises Mareuge, because at least she was not one of the majority of Wuppertal Jews who were deported directly to Auschwitz in 1941/42. "In 1944, she was first sent to a labour camp near Halle, then transferred to another labour camp and taken to Theresienstadt in February 1945." She saw the end of the war there and then returned to Wuppertal in June 1945. "There is a small collection about Flora Klee-Palyi in the Wuppertal city archives," says Mareuge, "thanks to the former head of the city archives, Mr Eckardt. The restitution file is also there. It states that she was recognised as a 'victim of National Socialism' immediately after the war, but she was not entitled to a pension at first, even though medical reports confirmed her sick status from the labour camps." Her health had deteriorated considerably. It was only ten years later that she was entitled to a small pension.

The unity of word and image

Flora Klee-Palyi continued to work after the war. She remained versatile both linguistically and artistically. "What is so interesting about her work is the book design. For her, word and image were one," says Mareuge, describing the artist's work. This is particularly well expressed in her book design work, as her pictures can be seen there. "These are mostly linocuts, which offered many possibilities. Some linocuts are even still preserved in the city archives." Her style changed after the war: "In the Vatican Library in Rome, she had studied the so-called initial art from the Middle Ages. These are the ornate, large first letters in ancient texts. Before the war, she worked figuratively, creating illustrations for major publishers in Munich. After the war, based on this initial art, she freed herself from figuration and worked abstractly. She tried out all sorts of things so that word and image could overlap. This resulted in around 50 volumes of poetry, which she illustrated and published herself. Some of them were printed in the graphic workshops of the former Werkkunstschule in Wuppertal." Later works were also produced by another publisher. "This is really abstract art, so it corresponds to the development of abstract art in the 1950s," says the academic, describing these volumes of poetry.

Klee-Palyi publishes anthologies

However, reducing Flora Klee-Palyi to designing books would not do justice to this versatile artist, as she has also worked as an editor of anthologies (an anthology is a collection of selected texts or text excerpts in book form, editor's note). "That was a huge effort every time, and that's where you realise how well connected she was," explains Mareuge. "She brought out two important anthologies. Firstly, a self-published anthology of French poetry under FKP for Flora Klee-Palyi. Then she was able to win over Limes-Verlag in Wiesbaden and published the anthology again in a new edition in 1958. In the same year, another anthology of German women's poetry was also published in Paris." What was special about this was that both anthologies were published bilingually. She even did some of the translations herself, both French/German and German/French, even though neither language was her mother tongue.

Artists' meeting in Boltenbergstraße

After Flora Klee-Palyi returned to Wuppertal in 1945, she and her husband cultivated artistic life in Wuppertal and organised many artists' meetings in their villa. "It's very difficult to reconstruct this," says Mareuge, "because the couple had no children and no heirs. There is simply no estate. You have to try to reconstruct it based on the letters that still exist in various archives." What is certain, however, is that there were meetings with writers and poets in small circles in Boltenbergstraße in Wuppertal-Sonnborn. "There is a beautiful letter from Flora Klee-Palyi to Hans Arp (Hans Arp -1886 - 1966- was a Franco-German painter, graphic artist, sculptor and poet, editor's note), who lived mainly near Paris at the time. She invites him to Wuppertal and writes: 'We have a guest room'." Klee-Palyi was also socially committed. "She also took in women who had been deported with her and supported them in the post-war period. Also Sinti and Roma, who were living in terrible conditions at the time."

Franco-German development of literature

A particular concern of her later work was the exchange of French and German literature. Her approach in her publications was the development and mutual influence of both cultures in literature. "In the anthologies and essays she published, she clearly shows how modern poetry in Germany was influenced by French symbolism, i.e. Nerval, Mallarmé, Baudelaire and Rimbaud, and vice versa," explains Mareuge. There was a mutual reception of German literature in France and vice versa. The surrealists were also influenced by the German Romantics. Flora Klee-Palyi thus comes from the French Symbolists to the European avant-gardes, i.e. Dada and Surrealism. She also shows their path and the development of writing in the post-war period and is committed to contemporary poetry in order to give readers access to it. "This Franco-German commitment in the post-war period was also of political significance." In 1956, she received the Eduard von der Heydt Prize from the city of Wuppertal for her work.

University library acquires collection of poetry volumes

"The majority of Flora Klee-Palyi's works can be found in Wuppertal," says Agathe Mareuge. It is very difficult to find them abroad, as she usually only published small editions and most of them are in private hands. "A few of her graphic works are kept in the Von der Heydt Museum, linocuts from the 1930s, actually even with a dedication to Baroness von der Heydt from 1934. There are a few more works in the city archive, three volumes are kept in the archive of the Bergische Universität, and several volumes of poetry are also in the city library in Elberfeld," says Mareuge, summarising the known holdings. Through her diligent research, however, the French academic was able to locate a collection that the university has now acquired. "It includes 40 volumes of poetry with her illustrations and also original watercolour drawings for a very beautiful book by Guillaume Apollinaire entitled "Bestiarium", in the translation by Karl Krolow, with whom she worked closely."

Exhibition on her life and work in the university library

Agathe Mareuge would like to bring the almost forgotten artist Flora Klee-Palyi back into the consciousness of the people of Wuppertal. Using the recently acquired collection and the exhibits in the Wuppertal City Archive and the Von der Heydt Museum, the dedicated academic and her students are preparing an exhibition on the life and work of the artist. "The newly acquired collection forms the core of the exhibition," she enthuses, "it really is a treasure. It also allows us to reconstruct which typographers and poets she worked with, as the network is also visible through the dedications. There are large-format works with linocuts and these original watercolour drawings. Other volumes with a series of drawings have no title. We still have to find out." The university library is providing nine display cases so that these fragile volumes of poetry can be shown. Loans from the city archives and the Von der Heydt Museum round off the exhibits. Posters created by students also provide information about her life and work.

"I think Flora Klee-Palyi needs to be remembered," concludes Mareuge, "and it was important to me that the diversity of her work is shown. I think one reason why she and many other female artists have been forgotten is that her work is so difficult to categorise. For her, it was all one, poetry and art were one."

Uwe Blass

Dr Agathe Mareuge is a lecturer in German Studies and Cultural Mediation at the Sorbonne University in Paris and this year's Maurice Halbwachs Guest Professor. The Maurice Halbwachs Visiting Professorship has an interdisciplinary and intercultural concept and is intended to publicise the University of Wuppertal's commitment to France and promote Franco-German research transfer and cultural exchange.