Yves Klein (1928–1962, Nice, France) transformed post-war European art through his radical exploration of colour, immateriality and the relationship between art and space. Best known for the intense ultramarine hue he called International Klein Blue (IKB), Klein sought to free colour from representation and make it an artistic experience in its own right.
Born into a family of painters, Klein initially pursued interests ranging from judo to philosophy and spirituality rather than following a conventional academic path in art. During the 1950s he began exhibiting monochrome paintings, eventually concentrating on the saturated blue that became synonymous with his work. Working with a Parisian paint supplier, he developed a binder that preserved the extraordinary luminosity and powdery intensity of ultramarine pigment, later registering the formulation under the name International Klein Blue.
Klein continually pushed beyond conventional painting. His celebrated Anthropometries were created using the bodies of models covered in blue pigment as “living brushes”, while other works employed fire, water, sponges and natural forces as artistic materials. His fascination with emptiness culminated in the legendary 1958 exhibition The Void at Galerie Iris Clert in Paris, where visitors entered an apparently empty gallery conceived as a space of pure immaterial sensibility.
Despite a career cut dramatically short by his death from a heart attack at just 34, Klein exerted a profound influence on conceptual art, Minimalism and performance art. Associated with Nouveau Réalisme and responsible for some of the most recognizable works of the post-war avant-garde, he fundamentally expanded the possibilities of what a painting, sculpture or even an artwork itself could be.