Yves Klein French, 1928-1962

Yves Klein was born on April 28, 1928, in Nice. Both his parents were artists. This environment allowed him to become familiar with the art world at a very young age, but Yves Klein initially took a different path.

Indeed, judo was his primary focus from 1947 onward; he was already painting, but it was a secondary pursuit. At the time, judo was not simply a sport, but a true intellectual and moral method of self-mastery. It was during one of his first classes that he met Armand Fernandez, the future Arman. In 1952, he went to Japan to refine his technique and earned his black belt. Upon his return to France, the French Judo Federation refused to authorize him to teach; he then opened his own school in 1955, which he decorated with monochrome paintings, but had to close it the following year for financial reasons.

Alongside judo, Yves Klein discovered the Rosicrucian Order in 1947 and began to view his monochromes as religious objects. He regularly read "Cosmo-Conception," the Order's foundational text written by Max Heindel. This work teaches knowledge through imagination, considered the most powerful of human faculties. When, in 1958, Klein read "Air and Dreams" by the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard, he found an echo of his own thoughts.
From 1955 onward, Klein began to present his works in an artistic context: at the Club des Solitaires in Paris, he exhibited monochromes in various colors under the title "Yves, Paintings." It was there that he met the French art critic Pierre Restany, with whom he would collaborate throughout his life.

In 1957, he began his "Blue Period," a choice of color that was reinforced after a trip to Assisi where he discovered Giotto's skies. Klein implemented this blue monochrome, visible in Giotto's work, thanks in particular to the paint's unique texture, derived from an original formula patented in 1960: he named this paint IKB (International Klein Blue). At this time, he was an internationally renowned artist; within the Nouveau Réalisme group, he was very active alongside Restany and Arman, while also pursuing his personal research.
However, the blue monochromes constitute only a part of his work, which also employed various other techniques. From 1960 onward, Klein used gold and fire and created works combining a trio of colors: blue, gold, and pink. In January 1961, Klein submitted a design for a transparent table filled with pure pigments.
Yves Klein died of a heart attack in June 1962.