Artwork

Yves Klein, born in 1928 in Nice, was the most influential, prominent, and controversial French artist to emerge in the 1950s. He is remembered above all for his use of a single color, the rich shade of ultramarine that he made his own: International Klein Blue. But the success of his sadly short-lived career lay in attacking many of the ideas that underpinned the abstract painting that had been dominant in France since the end of the Second World War. He was a leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by art critic Pierre Restany. You can find Klein’s work at many places including the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Musée Picasso in Antibes, the Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne and the Hakone Open-Air Museum in Japan.