Like many avant-garde artists in the early 20th century, Paul Klee tried to find new expressive forms in painting, and addressed the question of ‘primal beginnings in art’. He hoped to find these through the study and collection of children’s drawings, Art Brut and prehistoric and non-European art. For the first time, using works by the artist as well as private documents and objects, this exhibition will critically illuminate the many diverse sources that strengthened Klee in his artistic quest for supposedly ‘unspoiled immediacy’. The exhibition will also shed critical light on the ideological underpinnings of modernity, particularly the notion of a ‘primal’ form of art.