Biography

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Born on April 28, 1928 to artist parents, Yves Klein was one of the greatest of artistic pioneers in the Post-War period, pushing back the boundaries of what art could and indeed should do. As well as the highly influential use of ritual in his artistic oeuvre and in using new media such as air, sponges and fire, Klein revolutionized the nature of painting itself.

In an era that was marked by such developments as the drip painting of Jackson Pollock, the Informel movement and the iconoclastic innovations of his own friend Piero Manzoni, Klein made several incredibly influential leaps within the field of painting, especially in the form of his monochrome works and his Anthropometries and Fire Paintings.

“The sky is my first Artwork”
- Yves Klein 1947
Yves Klein’s signature.

With his interest in transcendentalism, his knowledge of mysticism, and his dream of capturing and re-inscribing the immaterial, Klein was perfectly placed to lead a new generation of artists out of the vestiges of a battered continent still recovering from the devastation of the Second World War. Just as Pollock had done in the United States, Klein was determined to steer a new course for art, one that was unconstrained by conventional materials and past procedures that had vaunted the primacy of a direct connection between the artist and canvas. Instead, Klein was drawn to another realm, an alternative dimension of reality in which brush and object open onto the entire spectrum of the senses.

Yves Klein creating Fire paintings, Gaz de France.
Photograph by Louis Frederic.
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