After being dismissed from the Art Academy in Düsseldorf in autumn 1933, the painter Paul Klee lived in Berne for six years. The son of a German father and Swiss mother, Klee was born in Switzerland yet had obtained the citizenship of his father. He died in 1940 as a German citizen in Switzerland. Despite his best efforts, he never succeeded in acquiring Swiss citizenship. To obtain citizenship, Klee would have had to live for five years without interruption in Switzerland. Conservative Switzerland viewed Klee and his art with great mistrust, which further complicated his naturalisation. Despite the mostly negative reviews, Klee's naturalisation request was finally approved. Paul Klee died five days before the final decision was to be made.
Strokes of fate - such as his dismissal from the Academy and exile in 1933, the outbreak of an incurable disease in 1935 and the seizure of 102 works from public collections by the Nazis in 1937 - were offset to some extent by minor successes such as the retrospective in Berne in 1935, a Klee exhibition in Lucerne in 1936 and the Bauhaus exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art in 1938. During his years of exile, he experienced an all-time career low in 1936, whereas his most productive phase was in 1939. The catalogues show that between 1934 and 1939 he created 2380 works, more than half of which in the last year of his life.

Selected works:
Angelus Novus (Lavierte Zeichnung, 1920)
Architektur der Ebene (Aquarell, 1923)
Der goldene Fisch (Gemälde, 1925)
Hauptweg und Nebenwege (Gemälde, 1929)
Ad marginem (Aquarell, 1930, 1935/36)
Ad parnassum (Gemälde, 1932)
Von der Liste gestrichen (Gemälde, 1933)
Angelus militans (Gemälde, 1940)

Further reading:
Kupper, Dieter: Paul Klee, Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt 2011.
Scholz, Dieter / Thomson, Christina (Hg.): Das Universum Klee, Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz 2008.
Fath, Manfred (Hg.): Paul Klee. Zeit der Reife. München, New York: Prestel 1996, S. 175-184.
Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Kunstmuseum Bern / Museum of Modern Art, New York (Hg.): Paul Klee. Leben und Werk, Stuttgart: Gert Hatje 1987.