French painter, sculptor and writer, Yves Klein was influenced by the Abstract art of his mother, Marie Raymond, from an early age. He had no formal artistic training but his first attempts at painting were in 1946, the year in which he met Arman who would later be associated with him in Nouveau Réalisme. Between 1949 and 1950, he worked at the Robert Savage frame shop where he learnt painting techniques and the application of gold leaf. In 1950, he had his first exhibition in London and, in 1953, exhibited a series of monochromatic paintings in Tokyo. In 1956, Klein achieved great critical and public recognition, mainly through his exhibition, Yves: Propositions Monochromes at the Colette Allendy Gallery, in Paris. In 1958, he executed his first Anthropométries: impressions of female bodies, covered in the "Blue of Yves Klein" and presented his first blank paintings. In 1960, he co-founded the Nouveaux Réalistes and created Cosmogonies, images created by the force of natural elements (rain, wind, leaves). In 1961, he produced his first planetarium relief and his first fire paintings. In 1983, he had a major retrospective at the Centre Georges Pompidou and, in 1994, at the Ludwig Museum in Cologne.
