Klein was born in Nice, in the Alpes-Maritimes department of France. His parents, Fred Klein and Marie Raymond, were both painters. … See more

While attending the École Nationale des Langues Orientales Klein began practicing judo. During the years 1948 to 1952, he travelled to Italy, Great Britain, Spain, and Japan. He travelled … See more

Monochrome works: The Blue Epoch
Although Klein had painted monochromes as early as 1949, and held the first private exhibition of this work in 1950, his first public showing was … See more

Alongside works by Andy Warhol and Willem de Kooning, Klein's painting RE 46 (1960) was among the top-five sellers at Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art sale in May 2006. … See more

Between 1947 and 1948, Klein conceived his Monotone Symphony (1949, formally Monotone Silence Symphony) that consisted of a single 20-minute sustained D major chord followed by a 20-minute silence – a precedent to Klein's later monochrome paintings See more

Thomas McEvilley, in an essay submitted to Artforum in 1982, classified Klein as an early, though enigmatic, postmodernist artist. See more

• Yves Klein Archives.org – official website
• Yves Klein: MoMA
• Real Immaterial: Superstudio and Yves Klein Review of "Yves Klein: Air Architecture" in X-TRA Contemporary Art Quarterly See more