Yves Klein

1928 - 1962

Biography

Yves Klein was a French artist best known for his blue monochrome paintings and iconoclastic and experiential approach.

Born to artist parents in Nice in 1928, he began to paint in the late 1940s. He studied Judo in Japan in 1952-3, becoming an expert and instructor when returned to Europe.

In 1955 he held his first one-artist gallery show at Galerie des Solitaires, where he exhibited his early monochrome pictures in a variety of colours. From 1957 onwards most of his paintings reflected his fascination with blue. He even got intellectual property rights for a colour he created, which he called international Klein Blue, naming many of his paintings IKB. He also worked with monogold using gold leaf and did gold murals for the opera house at Gelsenkirchen between 1957 and 1959.

In 1957 he began to experiment with 'fire' paintings and 'immaterial zones of sensibility'. He achieved these paintings with an open dangerous flame at the central research laboratory of the National Gasworks of France.

His relentless drive for experimentation eventually lead to a serious of pieces he called his 'Anthropometries'. He made these using naked female models covered in blue paint and dragged across or laid upon canvases. The models were thus used as living brushes.

He was a member of the group Nouveaux R-23alistes with Arman, Raysse, Spoerri, Tinguely, Pierre Restany, among others. He died of a heart attack in Paris, aged just 34.

Images

ANT 59 1960 Pigment in synthetic resin on paper laid down on canvas 75.9 x 40.4cm © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2010

IKB 64 1957 dry blue pigment and synthetic resin on canvas laid on panel 55.6 cm X 77.5cm © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2010