Yves Klein, the radical French artist who died in 1962 when he was only 34, has been something of an enigma to Americans. Individual works have occasionally turned up in museum shows in this country, and Upper East Side galleries like Gagosian, Michael Werner and L&M Arts have displayed his work. In contrast to Europe, where several institutions have held shows of his art, such exhibitions have been rare here.
Now the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis are about to give Klein his first solo museum moment in the United States since a traveling exhibition in 1982 visited the Guggenheim, the Rice Museum in Houston and other sites.
Four years in the making, “Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers” will open in May at the Hirshhorn and will include more than 100 works arranged thematically. Loans are coming from the artist’s archives, institutions in Europe and the United States, and private collections.
“More and more we’re starting to understand how Klein opened up the gates for what came in the late ’60s, ’70s and ’80s in Minimalism, Conceptual art, light and space art, and performance,” said Kerry Brougher, deputy director and chief curator at the Hirshhorn. “He used a full host of media, not just painting but sculpture, performance, film, photography.”
A colorful figure who was an aspiring judo instructor, Klein studied Rosicrucianism and was obsessed with philosophical and poetic investigations of space and science. He actually leapt into space one morning in 1960 by throwing himself out the window of a house in Paris, an act that was documented by Harry Shunk in the photograph “Leap Into the Void.”
“For me one of the most important things about Klein was that he blurred his life and art together, injecting humor as well as a sense of the magician,” Mr. Brougher said. “Sometimes you wonder if he’s serious or not.”
Klein’s search for a new kind of painting began on a beach in Nice in 1947, when he imagined himself levitating, staring at the sky and singing his name before falling back to earth. He then proclaimed that “the blue sky is my first artwork.”
He also became obsessed with blue, which he said embodied nature. He eventually patented a deep blue, known as International Klein Blue or I.K.B., and applied it — with sponges — in his famous monochrome paintings. He also used nude models, whom he called “living brushes,” covering them in paint and using them on white paper on the walls and floor. In 1961 he started a series of paintings using a flamethrower.
Examples of all these works will be included in the exhibition, which opens in Washington on May 20 before traveling to the Walker, where it will be on view starting Oct. 23.
Kleins for Sale
The timing of the Klein retrospective could not be better for Sotheby’s and Christie’s. For several years now Klein has been the subject of growing interest among collectors, as reflected in the recent prices his work has fetched. In London in February buyers spent about $25.5 million on his works, according to Christie’s. At that auction house the London jeweler Laurence Graff paid $6.4 million — twice the high estimate — for “Anthropométrie (ANT 5),” a painting of a spray-painted female body. The painting had last sold in London in 2001 for $549,660.
“As postwar American art continues rising in price, some collectors are looking outside their prescribed boxes and realizing that Klein is as relevant as ’60s American art,” said Tobias Meyer, who runs Sotheby’s contemporary art department worldwide.
Now both auction houses say that important Kleins will be in the big May sales in New York. “It fits in with aesthetic of those who collect Abstract Expressionist and Minimalist works,” said Brett Gorvy, co-head of postwar and contemporary art at Christie’s. “In London we saw the depth of this market, and it was really quite amazing.”
One of the highlights of Christie’s sale on May 11 will be “ANT 93, Le Buffle” (“The Buffalo”) from 1960-61, from Klein’s “Anthropométrie” series. It was made with one of his “living brushes,” a curvaceous model coated in his signature blue and smeared on the canvas, creating the shape of a buffalo. The work is expected to bring about $10 million. While no one at the auction house is saying who the seller is, experts in the field say the painting belongs to the San Francisco collectors Richard and Pamela Kramlich.
Return to the Met
Although he’s been director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art for more than a year now, Thomas P. Campbell is still putting together his own senior management team. His latest appointment is Jennifer Russell. Senior deputy director of exhibitions, collections and programs at the Museum of Modern Art, Ms. Russell will become the Met’s associate director for exhibitions. She is replacing Mahrukh Tarapor, who is retiring.
Ms. Russell is no stranger to the Met. She worked there from 1993 to 1996 as the associate director for administration, overseeing the curatorial, conservation, publications and library departments.
In her new role “Jennifer will be in charge of the management of exhibitions from their inception to their conclusion,” Mr. Campbell said in a telephone interview. “A key component of the job will be being involved in tricky negotiations, bringing objects here from around the world. But we have 17 curatorial departments, and one of my goals at this time when we have to be careful about resources is to bring new attention to our own collections. So Jennifer will also be involved in stimulating internal discussions making links across departments.”
