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Yves Klein (; 28 April 1928 – 6 June 1962) was a French artist and an important figure in post-war European art. He was a leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by art critic
Pierre Restany Pierre Restany (24 June 1930 – 29 May 2003), was an internationally known French art critic and cultural philosopher. Restany was born in Amélie-les-Bains-Palalda, Pyrénées-Orientales, and spent his childhood in Casablanca. On retur ...
. Klein was a pioneer in the development of
performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...
, and is seen as an inspiration to and as a forerunner of minimal art, as well as pop art.


Biography

Klein was born in
Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative ...
, in the
Alpes-Maritimes Alpes-Maritimes (; oc, Aups Maritims; it, Alpi Marittime, "Maritime Alps") is a department of France located in the country's southeast corner, on the Italian border and Mediterranean coast. Part of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, ...
department of France. His parents, Fred Klein and Marie Raymond, were both painters. His father painted in a loose
post-impressionist Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction ag ...
style, while his mother was a leading figure in Art informel, and held regular soirées with other leading practitioners of this Parisian abstract movement. Klein received no formal training in art, but his parents exposed him to different styles. His father was a figurative style painter, while his mother had an interest in abstract expressionism. From 1942 to 1946, Klein studied at the École Nationale de la Marine Marchande and the École Nationale des Langues Orientales. At this time, he became friends with
Arman Arman (November 17, 1928 – October 22, 2005) was a French-born American artist. Born Armand Fernandez in Nice, France, Arman was a painter who moved from using objects for the ink or paint traces they leave (''cachets'', ''allures d'objet'') to ...
(Armand Fernandez) and Claude Pascal and started to paint. At the age of nineteen, Klein and his friends lay on a beach in the south of France, and divided the world between themselves; Arman chose the earth, Pascal, words, while Klein chose the ethereal space surrounding the planet, which he then proceeded to sign: In early 1948, Klein was exposed to Max Heindel's 1909 text ''The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception'' and pursued a membership with an American society dedicated to
Rosicrucianism Rosicrucianism is a spiritual and cultural movement that arose in Europe in the early 17th century after the publication of several texts purported to announce the existence of a hitherto unknown esoteric order to the world and made seeking it ...
.


Judo

While attending the École Nationale des Langues Orientales Klein began practicing
judo is an unarmed modern Japanese martial art, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent form of jacket wrestling competed internationally.『日本大百科全書』電子版【柔道】(CD-ROM version of Encyclopedia Nipponica, "Judo") ...
. During the years 1948 to 1952, he travelled to Italy, Great Britain, Spain, and Japan. He travelled to Japan in 1953 where he became, at the age of 25, a master at judo receiving the rank of ''yodan'' (4th ''
dan Dan or DAN may refer to: People * Dan (name), including a list of people with the name ** Dan (king), several kings of Denmark * Dan people, an ethnic group located in West Africa **Dan language, a Mande language spoken primarily in Côte d'Ivoir ...
''/degree black-belt) from the
Kodokan The , or ''Kōdōkan'' (講道館), is the headquarters of the worldwide judo community. The ''kōdōkan'' was founded in 1882 by Kanō Jigorō, the founder of judo, and is now an eight-story building in Tokyo. Etymology Literally, ''kō'' ...
, becoming the first European to rise to that rank. Later that year, he became the technical director of the Spanish judo team. In 1954 Klein wrote a book on judo called ''Les Fondements du judo''. The same year, he settled permanently in Paris and began in earnest to establish himself in the art world.


Music

Between 1947 and 1948, Klein conceived his ''Monotone Symphony'' (1949, formally ''Monotone Silence Symphony'') that consisted of a single 20-minute sustained chord followed by a 20-minute silence – a precedent to Klein's later monochrome paintings and to the work of
minimal music Minimal music (also called minimalism)"Minimalism in music has been defined as an aesthetic, a style, and a technique, each of which has been a suitable description of the term at certain points in the development of minimal music. However, two o ...
ians, particularly
La Monte Young La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best k ...
's
drone music Drone music, drone-based music, or simply drone, is a minimalist genre that emphasizes the use of sustained sounds, notes, or tone clusters – called drones. It is typically characterized by lengthy audio programs with relatively slight harm ...
and John Cage's ''
4′33″ ''4′33″'' (pronounced "four minutes, thirty-three seconds" or just "four thirty-three") is a three-movement composition by American experimental composer John Cage. It was composed in 1952, for any instrument or combination of instruments, ...
''.


Artwork


Monochrome works: The Blue Epoch

Although Klein had painted monochromes as early as 1949, and held the first private exhibition of this work in 1950, his first public showing was the publication of the
artist's book Artists' books (or book arts or book objects) are works of art that utilize the form of the book. They are often published in small editions, though they are sometimes produced as one-of-a-kind objects. Overview Artists' books have employed a ...
'' Yves Peintures'' in November 1954. Parodying a traditional
catalogue raisonné A ''catalogue raisonné'' (or critical catalogue) is a comprehensive, annotated listing of all the known artworks by an artist either in a particular medium or all media. The works are described in such a way that they may be reliably identified ...
, the book featured a series of intense monochromes linked to various cities he had lived in during the previous years. ''Yves Peintures'' anticipated his first two shows of oil paintings, at the Club des Solitaires, Paris, October 1955 and ''Yves: Proposition monochromes'' at Gallery Colette Allendy, February 1956. Public responses to these shows, which displayed orange, yellow, red, pink and blue monochromes, deeply disappointed Klein, as people went from painting to painting, linking them together as a sort of mosaic. The next exhibition, 'Proposte Monocrome, Epoca Blu' (Proposition Monochrome; Blue Epoch) at the Gallery Apollinaire, Milan, (January 1957), featured 11 identical blue canvases, using ultramarine pigment suspended in a synthetic resin 'Rhodopas', described by Klein as "The Medium". Discovered with the help of Edouard Adam, a Parisian paint dealer, the optical effect retained the brilliance of the pigment which, when suspended in linseed oil, tended to become dull. Klein later deposited a Soleau envelope for this recipe to maintain the "authenticity of the pure idea." This colour, reminiscent of the
lapis lazuli Lapis lazuli (; ), or lapis for short, is a deep-blue metamorphic rock used as a semi-precious stone that has been prized since antiquity for its intense color. As early as the 7th millennium BC, lapis lazuli was mined in the Sar-i Sang mine ...
used to paint the Madonna's robes in medieval paintings, was to become known as International Klein Blue (IKB). The paintings were attached to poles placed 20 cm away from the walls to increase their spatial ambiguities. All 11 of the canvases were priced differently. The buyers would go through the gallery, observing each canvas and purchase the one that was deemed best in their own eyes specifically. Klein's idea was that each buyer would see something unique in the canvas that they bought that other buyers may not have seen. So while each painting visually looked the same, the impact each had on the buyer was completely unique. The show was a critical and commercial success, traveling to Paris, Düsseldorf and London. The Parisian exhibition, at the
Iris Clert Gallery The Iris Clert Gallery (''Galerie Iris Clert'' in French) was an art gallery named after its Greek owner and curator, Iris Clert. The single-room gallery The Iris Clert Gallery (Galerie'' Iris Clert'' in French) was an art gallery named after its ...
in May 1957, became a seminal happening. To mark the opening, 1001 blue balloons were released and blue postcards were sent out using IKB stamps that Klein had bribed the postal service to accept as legitimate. Concurrently, an exhibition of tubs of blue pigment and fire paintings was held at Galerie Collette Allendy.


''The Void''

For his next exhibition at the
Iris Clert Gallery The Iris Clert Gallery (''Galerie Iris Clert'' in French) was an art gallery named after its Greek owner and curator, Iris Clert. The single-room gallery The Iris Clert Gallery (Galerie'' Iris Clert'' in French) was an art gallery named after its ...
(April 1958), Klein chose to show nothing whatsoever, called ''La spécialisation de la sensibilité à l’état matière première en sensibilité picturale stabilisée, Le Vide'' (''The Specialization of Sensibility in the Raw Material State into Stabilized Pictorial Sensibility, The Void''): he removed everything in the gallery space except a large cabinet, painted every surface white, and then staged an elaborate entrance procedure for the opening night: the gallery's window was painted blue, and a blue curtain was hung in the entrance lobby, accompanied by republican guards and blue cocktails. Thanks to an enormous publicity drive, 3,000 people queued up, waiting to be let into an empty room. The art historian Olivier Berggruen situates Klein "as one who strove for total liberation," forming connections between perverse ritual and a disdain of convention. Klein had studied
judo is an unarmed modern Japanese martial art, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent form of jacket wrestling competed internationally.『日本大百科全書』電子版【柔道】(CD-ROM version of Encyclopedia Nipponica, "Judo") ...
in Japan between 1952 and 1954, and also displayed an interest in
Zen Buddhism Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), an ...
. According to Berggruen, he used ritual as a means not to attain belief, but rather as a forum through which to reach abstraction—transcending worldly vestiges temporarily, and returning to earth as a new being. Later in the year, he was invited to decorate the
Gelsenkirchen Gelsenkirchen (, , ; wep, Gelsenkiärken) is the 25th most populous city of Germany and the 11th most populous in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia with 262,528 (2016) inhabitants. On the Emscher River (a tributary of the Rhine), it lies ...
Opera House An opera house is a theatre building used for performances of opera. It usually includes a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and building sets. While some venues are constructed specifically fo ...
, Germany, with a series of vast blue murals, the largest of which were 20 metres by 7 metres. The Opera House was inaugurated in December 1959. Klein celebrated the commission by travelling to
Cascia Cascia () is a town and ''comune'' (municipality) of the Italian province of Perugia in a rather remote area of the mountainous southeastern corner of Umbria. It is about 21 km from Norcia on the road to Rieti in the Lazio (63 km). It is ...
, Italy, to place an ex-voto offering at the Saint Rita Monastery. "May all that emerges from me be beautiful," he prayed. The offering took the form of a small transparent plastic box containing three compartments; one filled with IKB pigment, one filled with pink pigment, and one with gold leaf inside. The container was only rediscovered in 1980. Klein's last two exhibitions at Iris Clert's were ''Vitesse Pure et Stabilité Monochrome'' (''Sheer Speed and Monochrome Stability''), November 1958, a collaboration with
Jean Tinguely Jean Tinguely (22 May 1925 – 30 August 1991) was a Swiss sculptor best known for his kinetic art sculptural machines (known officially as Métamatics) that extended the Dada tradition into the later part of the 20th century. Tinguely's art ...
, of kinetic sculptures, and ''Bas-Reliefs dans une Forêt d’Éponges'' (''
Bas-Relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...
s in a Sponge Forest''), June 1959, a collection of sponges that Klein had used to paint IKB canvases, mounted on steel rods and set in rocks that he'd found in his parents' garden.


Anthropométries

Despite the IKB paintings being uniformly coloured, Klein experimented with various methods of applying the paint; firstly different rollers and then later sponges, created a series of varied surfaces. This experimentalism would lead to a number of works Klein made using naked female models covered in blue paint and dragged across or laid upon canvases to make the image, using the models as "living brushes". This type of work he called ''Anthropometry''. Other paintings in this method of production include "recordings" of rain that Klein made by driving around in the rain at 70 miles per hour with a canvas tied to the roof of his car, and canvases with patterns of soot created by scorching the canvas with gas burners. Klein and
Arman Arman (November 17, 1928 – October 22, 2005) was a French-born American artist. Born Armand Fernandez in Nice, France, Arman was a painter who moved from using objects for the ink or paint traces they leave (''cachets'', ''allures d'objet'') to ...
were continually involved with each other creatively, both as Nouveaux Réalistes and as friends. Both from Nice, the two worked together for many years and Arman even named his son, Yves Arman, after Yves Klein, who was his godfather. Sometimes the creation of these paintings was turned into a kind of
performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...
—an event in 1960, for example, had an audience dressed in formal evening wear watching the models go about their task while an instrumental ensemble played Klein's 1949 ''The Monotone Symphony''. In the performance piece, '' Zone de Sensibilité Picturale Immatérielle'' (''Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility'') 1959–1962, he offered empty spaces in the city in exchange for gold. He wanted his buyers to experience The Void by selling them empty space. In his view this experience could only be paid for in the purest material: gold. In exchange, he gave a certificate of ownership to the buyer. As the second part of the piece, performed on the Seine with an art critic in attendance, if the buyer agreed to set fire to the certificate, Klein would throw half the gold into the river, in order to restore the "natural order" that he had unbalanced by selling the empty space (that was now not "empty" anymore). He used the other half of the gold to create a series of gold-leafed works, which, along with a series of pink monochromes, began to augment his blue monochromes toward the end of his life.


Leap into the Void

Klein is also well known for a composite photograph, ''Saut dans le vide'' (''Leap into the Void''), originally published in his 1960 artist's book '' Dimanche'', which apparently shows him jumping off a wall, arms outstretched, towards the pavement. Klein used the photograph as evidence of his ability to undertake unaided lunar travel. In fact, "Saut dans le vide", published as part of a broadside on the part of Klein (the "artist of space") denouncing NASA's own lunar expeditions as hubris and folly, was a photomontage in which the large tarpaulin, held by artist friends, Klein leaped onto was removed from the final image. Klein's work revolved around a
Zen Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...
-influenced concept he came to describe as "le Vide" (the Void). Klein's Void is a nirvana-like state that is void of worldly influences; a neutral zone where one is inspired to pay attention to one's own sensibilities, and to "reality" as opposed to "representation". Klein presented his work in forms that were recognized as art—paintings, a book, a musical composition—but then would take away the expected content of that form (paintings without pictures, a book without words, a musical composition without in fact composition) leaving only a shell, as it were. In this way he tried to create for the audience his "Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility". Instead of representing objects in a subjective, artistic way, Klein wanted his subjects to be represented by their imprint: the image of their absence. He tried to make his audience experience a state where an idea could simultaneously be "felt" as well as "understood".


Multiples

As well as painting flat canvases, Klein produced a series of works throughout his career that blurred the edges between painting and sculpture. He appropriated plaster casts of famous sculptures, such as the ''
Winged Victory of Samothrace The ''Winged Victory of Samothrace'', or the ''Nike of Samothrace'', is a votive monument originally found on the island of Samothrace, north of the Aegean Sea. It is a masterpiece of Greek sculpture from the Hellenistic era, dating from the be ...
'' and the ''
Venus de Milo The ''Venus de Milo'' (; el, Αφροδίτη της Μήλου, Afrodíti tis Mílou) is an ancient Greek sculpture that was created during the Hellenistic period, sometime between 150 and 125 BC. It is one of the most famous works of ancient ...
'', by painting them International Klein Blue; he painted a globe, 3D reliefs of areas of France and dowels which he hung from the ceiling as rain. He also stuck sponges to canvases and painted dinner plates. Many of these works were later manufactured as editioned multiples after his death. In ''Blue Obelisk'', a project that he had failed to realise in 1958, but that finally happened in 1983, he appropriated the
Place de la Concorde The Place de la Concorde () is one of the major public squares in Paris, France. Measuring in area, it is the largest square in the French capital. It is located in the city's eighth arrondissement, at the eastern end of the Champs-Élysées. ...
by shining blue spotlights onto the central obelisk.


Last years

The art critic
Pierre Restany Pierre Restany (24 June 1930 – 29 May 2003), was an internationally known French art critic and cultural philosopher. Restany was born in Amélie-les-Bains-Palalda, Pyrénées-Orientales, and spent his childhood in Casablanca. On retur ...
, who spoke of how his first meeting with Klein had been fundamental to them both, went on to found the Nouveau Réalisme group with Klein in Klein's studio/apartment on 27 October 1960. Founding members were
Arman Arman (November 17, 1928 – October 22, 2005) was a French-born American artist. Born Armand Fernandez in Nice, France, Arman was a painter who moved from using objects for the ink or paint traces they leave (''cachets'', ''allures d'objet'') to ...
, Francois Dufrêne,
Raymond Hains Raymond Hains (9 November 1926 – 28 October 2005) was a prominent French visual artist and a founder of the Nouveau réalisme movement. In 1960, he signed, along with Arman, François Dufrêne, Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely, Jacques Ville ...
, Yves Klein, Martial Raysse,
Daniel Spoerri Daniel Spoerri (born 27 March 1930) is a Swiss artist and writer born in Romania. Spoerri is best known for his "snare-pictures," a type of assemblage or object art, in which he captures a group of objects, such as the remains of meals eaten by in ...
,
Jean Tinguely Jean Tinguely (22 May 1925 – 30 August 1991) was a Swiss sculptor best known for his kinetic art sculptural machines (known officially as Métamatics) that extended the Dada tradition into the later part of the 20th century. Tinguely's art ...
, and
Jacques Villeglé Jacques Villeglé, born Jacques Mahé de la Villeglé (27 March 1926 – 6 June 2022) was a French mixed-media artist and affichiste famous for his alphabet with symbolic letters and decollage with ripped or lacerated posters. He was a member ...
, with Niki de Saint Phalle,
Christo Christo Vladimirov Javacheff (1935–2020) and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon (1935–2009), known as Christo and Jeanne-Claude, were artists noted for their large-scale, site-specific environmental installations, often large landmarks and ...
and Gérard Deschamps joining later. Normally seen as a French version of Pop Art, the aim of the group was stated as 'Nouveau Réalisme—new ways of perceiving the real' 'Nouveau Réalisme nouvelles approches perceptives du réel''Kerstin Stremmel, ''Realism'', Taschen, 2004, p. 13. A large retrospective was held at
Krefeld Krefeld ( , ; li, Krieëvel ), also spelled Crefeld until 1925 (though the spelling was still being used in British papers throughout the Second World War), is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located northwest of Düsseldorf, ...
, Germany, January 1961, followed by an unsuccessful opening at Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, in which Klein failed to sell a single painting. He stayed with Rotraut at the Chelsea Hotel for the duration of the exhibition; and, while there, he wrote the "Chelsea Hotel Manifesto", a proclamation of the "multiplicity of new possibilities." In part, the manifesto declared: He moved on to exhibit at the Dwan Gallery, Los Angeles, and traveled extensively in the
Western U.S. The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the Wes ...
, visiting
Death Valley Death Valley is a desert valley in Eastern California, in the northern Mojave Desert, bordering the Great Basin Desert. During summer, it is the hottest place on Earth. Death Valley's Badwater Basin is the point of lowest elevation in Nort ...
in the
Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert ( ; mov, Hayikwiir Mat'aar; es, Desierto de Mojave) is a desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily ...
. In 1962, Klein married Rotraut Uecker who gave birth to their son shortly after his death.


Death

Klein suffered a heart attack while watching the film '' Mondo cane'' (in which he is featured) at the
Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films ...
on 11 May 1962. Two more heart attacks followed, the second of which killed him on 6 June 1962.


Legacy

Thomas McEvilley Thomas McEvilley (; July 13, 1939 – March 2, 2013) was an American art critic, poet, novelist, and scholar. He was a Distinguished Lecturer in Art History at Rice UniversityThomas McEvilley, G. Roger Denson (1996), ''Capacity: : History, th ...
, in an essay submitted to ''
Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ x 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notably ...
'' in 1982, classified Klein as an early, though enigmatic,
postmodernist Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of modern ...
artist. A sort of parody of Klein's ''Anthropometry'' performance is featured in the 1961 film '' Wise Guys'' (original title: ''Les Godelureaux'') directed by
Claude Chabrol Claude Henri Jean Chabrol (; 24 June 1930 – 12 September 2010) was a French film director and a member of the French New Wave (''nouvelle vague'') group of filmmakers who first came to prominence at the end of the 1950s. Like his colleagues a ...
. The Yves Klein archive is housed in
Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1 ...
, where his widow Rotraut Klein-Moquay has a home. On 8 December 2017, Welsh alternative rock band
Manic Street Preachers Manic Street Preachers, also known simply as the Manics, are a Welsh Rock music, rock band formed in Blackwood, Caerphilly, Blackwood in 1986. The band consists of cousins James Dean Bradfield (lead vocals, lead guitar) and Sean Moore (musician ...
released the lead single from their thirteenth studio album Resistance is Futile,
International Blue "International Blue" is a song by Manic Street Preachers, released as a single in December 2017. This song is the first single for the album '' Resistance Is Futile'' (2018), written by James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire and Sean Moore. An alte ...
. The song was inspired by Klein, particularly the titular International Klein Blue. The Manics' bassist and lyricist Nicky Wire told the Quietus ""There was a joy to 'International Blue' that we weren't sure we could convey any more, the feeling of being in love with something like Yves Klein, to pass on the joy of that colour and that vividness – we weren't sure if we still had it in us. It sounds quite young." In 2017, the
MoMA Moma may refer to: People * Moma Clarke (1869–1958), British journalist * Moma Marković (1912–1992), Serbian politician * Momčilo Rajin (born 1954), Serbian art and music critic, theorist and historian, artist and publisher Places ; ...
- and
WNYC WNYC is the trademark and a set of call letters shared by WNYC (AM) and WNYC-FM, a pair of nonprofit, noncommercial, public radio stations located in New York City. WNYC is owned by New York Public Radio (NYPR), a nonprofit organization that ...
-produced contemporary art podcast ''A Piece of Work'' hosted by
Abbi Jacobson Abbi Jacobson is an American comedian, writer, actress, illustrator and producer. She co-created and co-starred in the Comedy Central series ''Broad City'' (2014–2019) with Ilana Glazer, based on the web series of the same name. Her ...
had an episode focused on Klein's blue monochromes. In 2018, the podcast '' This is Love'' released an episode, "Blue," about Klein and his work. A 2021 short novel, ''Blue Postcards'' by Douglas Bruton, is built around the life and art of Yves Klein.


Art market

Alongside works by
Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...
and
Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...
, Klein's painting ''RE 46'' (1960) was among the top-five sellers at
Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is owned by Groupe Artémi ...
Post-War and Contemporary Art sale in May 2006. His monochromatic blue sponge painting sold for $4,720,000. Previously, his painting ''RE I'' (1958) had sold for $6,716,000 at Christie's New York in November 2000. In 2008, ''MG 9'' (1962), a monochromatic gold painting, sold for $21 million at Christie's. ''FC1 (Fire Color 1)'' (1962), a nearly -long panel created with a blowtorch, water and two models, sold for $36.4 million at Christie's in 2012. In 2013, Klein's ''Sculpture Éponge Bleue Sans Titre, SE 168'', a 1959 sculpture made with natural sea sponges drenched in blue pigment, fetched $22 million, the highest price paid for a sculpture by the artist.Katya Kazakina and Philip Boroff (15 May 2013)
"Barnett Newman Leads Sotheby's NYC $294 Million Auction"
''
Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to: People * Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer * Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian * Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician and m ...
''.


References


External links


Yves Klein Archives.org
– official website
Yves Klein: MoMAReal Immaterial: Superstudio and Yves Klein
''Review of "Yves Klein: Air Architecture" in'' '' X-TRA Contemporary Art Quarterly'' * Marc de Verneuil and Mélanie Marbach
''Zone de sensibilité picturale immatérielle (1962–2012)'', 26 January 2012, Paris
(double hommage to Yves Klein and Dino Buzzatti on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of their collaborative work) *
The Life and Work of Yves Klein Told by Rotraut. An interview with Rotraut
Video by Louisiana Channel {{DEFAULTSORT:Klein, Yves Abstract painters French contemporary painters People from Nice 1928 births 1962 deaths Nouveau réalisme artists 20th-century French painters 20th-century French male artists French male painters French contemporary artists French male judoka French abstract artists French performance artists