Yves Klein
«To feel the soul without explaining it, without words, and to represent that sensation… I believe that is one of the reasons that led me to monochromatism.»
Yves Klein is a French plastic artist. Despite a very short career, he is today considered one of the greatest representatives of contemporary French and international art. Born into a family of artists, he studied to become a merchant navy officer. Very talented in judo, he perfected his skills during a stay in Japan. Upon returning to France, he founded his own judo school in 1955, which he was forced to close the following year due to financial reasons. At the end of the 1940s, he began painting monochromes. In 1956, he created the International Klein Blue (IKB), the famous «Klein blue». This hue, according to him, is «the most perfect expression of blue».
That same year, he began to gain recognition through the exhibition «Yves, Propositions monochromes» in Paris. He then presented «Propositions monochromes, époque bleue» (monochrome propositions, blue era) at the Apollinaire gallery in Milan, with eleven identical blue paintings. Becoming a world-renowned artist, he was the originator of Nouveau Réalisme with Arman and Pierre Restany. He then experimented with several techniques, including the «living brushes» technique: during public performances, models coated with paint were applied directly to the canvas to create the work. In early 1961, he began a series of fire paintings. His wish: to imprint the traces of fire on various surfaces. On June 6, 1962, at the age of 34, he died of a heart attack.
