
Yves Klein
Monochrome Bleu (IKB 3), 1989
In 1955, Yves Klein had his first public showing of his monochrome oil paintings, presenting a new …

A vintage exhibition poster (handmade four color lithography on heavy wove paper) after French …

Yves Klein is best known for his trademark ultramarine pigment, which he patented as International Klein Blue in 1961. “Blue…is beyond dimensions, whereas the other colors are not,” he said. “All colors arouse specific ideas, while blue suggests at most the sea and the sky; and they, after all, are in actual, visible nature what is most abstract.” Starting in the mid-1950s, Klein made retinal blue monochromes (which would prove cornerstones of Minimalism) and the pigment would also feature prominently in his Anthropometry paintings, for which Klein smeared nude women with blue pigment and used them as human brushes on canvas, sometimes in elaborate public performances. Klein's work anticipated Conceptual art, Performance art, and environmental art, as in his selling of portions of empty space to collectors. For The Void (1958), he presented an empty gallery as an artwork, wearing a white tie and tails to show visitors around the blank walls.

In 1955, Yves Klein had his first public showing of his monochrome oil paintings, presenting a new and controversial form of abstraction that only featured a single color. At the Club des Solitaires in Paris, Klein adorned the walls with intensely vibrant canvases in colors like magenta, yellow, red, and blue. His …

A vintage exhibition poster (handmade four color lithography on heavy wove paper) after French artist Yves Klein (1928-1962) titled "Monochrome Bleu (IKB 3)", 1989. Made for the Centre Georges Pompidou, National Museum of Modern Art of France. The painting depicted on this original poster is within the …

Yves Klein is best known for his trademark ultramarine pigment, which he patented as International Klein Blue in 1961. “Blue…is beyond dimensions, whereas the other colors are not,” he said. “All colors arouse specific ideas, while blue suggests at most the sea and the sky; and they, after all, are in actual, visible nature what is most abstract.” Starting in the mid-1950s, Klein made retinal blue monochromes (which would prove cornerstones of Minimalism) and the pigment would also feature prominently in his Anthropometry paintings, for which Klein smeared nude women with blue pigment and used them as human brushes on canvas, sometimes in elaborate public performances. Klein's work anticipated Conceptual art, Performance art, and environmental art, as in his selling of portions of empty space to collectors. For The Void (1958), he presented an empty gallery as an artwork, wearing a white tie and tails to show visitors around the blank walls.