The Most Expensive Yves Klein Paintings Sold at Auction | Widewalls
Yves Klein paintings are still perceived as revolutionary in the history of the post-war European art. His famous monochrome paintings, in particular, have been praised for the use of one single, primary color alone: blue. This particular nuance was patented by Yves Klein himself and it became famous as the International Klein Blue (IKB). Klein began painting monochrome paintings early in a career (in 1949, when he had 21). The first public showing of Yves Klein’s monochrome paintings appeared in the publication of the Artist’s book Yves Peintures in November 1954. One of the most important exhibitions of Klein’s work took place in 1956, at Galerie Colette Allendy. The exhibition featured orange, yellow, red, pink and blue monochromes. However, Klein was disappointed, as the public linked the artworks to mosaics. Klein’s frustration led him to research and finally discover the famous IKB. He used to hang the blue monochrome paintings by attaching them to poles placed 20 cm away from the walls to increase their spatial ambiguities. And indeed, these Yves Klein’s blue works are almost intangible, ethereal and completely illusive, making the observer question space and the material nature of the world.
The Importance of Yves Klein on the French Art Scene
Yves Klein was the leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by the renowned art critic Pierre Restany. The movement could be understood as a “French reaction” to Pop-Art that became popular in the United States. This group, together with other ones such as Fluxus, were one of the numerous tendencies of the avant-garde in the 1960s.
It’s important to emphasize that Yves Klein is also known as one of the pioneers of performance art not only in France but worldwide. His performative painting sessions and monochromes were used to experiment with colors in a more physical way(apart from monochrome paintings). This experimentalism includes works where Klein used naked female models as vessels, covering them in blue paint and dragging them across canvases to make an image, using the models as “living brushes”. This type of work the artist called Anthropometry. Finally, Klein’s work largely influenced the latter practice of artists associated with Minimal Art and Pop Art.
One of the main goals of Yves Klein was to capture the immaterial. Born in Nice, France, in 1928, Yves Klein created what he considered his first artwork when he signed the sky above Nice in 1947. Certainly one of the last century’s most influential artists, Yves Klein (1928–1962) took the European art scene by storm in a prolific career that lasted only from 1954 to 1962, when he suffered a heart attack at the age of 34. The artist carved out new aesthetic and theoretical territory based on his study of the mystical sect Rosicrucianism, philosophical and poetic investigations of space and science, and the practice of Judo, which he described as “the discovery of the human body in a spiritual space.”
Featured image: Yves Klein – Anthropometrie Le Buffle (ANT 93) / Yves Klein – IKB 92 / Yves Klein – Peinture de feu couleur sans titre, (FC 27) / Portrait of Yves Klein
