A Relief Portrait of Arman, by Yves Klein

Yves Klein is a French painter born in Nice in 1928 and an important figure in post-war European art.
In 1956, he patented the formula for his invention, International Klein Bleue, a deep blue hue colour.
Klein started to create relief portraits in the 1960s.

Relief portrait of Arman

Known for his monochrome works that he painted from 1957, Yves Klein decided in the 1960s to create relief portraits.
The first was that of his friend Arman, a friend belonging to the same movement Les Nouveaux Réalistes.

Klein came up with the idea of producing a series of relief portraits
of his artist friends, based on life-sized plaster effigies, for a work
that had not yet found its definitive form. Nude model casts,
irregularly cut at the level of the thighs, torso face, head slightly
turned aside, especially in the case of Arman, arms along the body and
fists clenched as in some sculptures Greek archaic: they had to be
melted in bronze, covered with blue pigment and mounted on a plywood
panel covered with gold leaf.

Learn more

Visit the Yves Klein website: http://www.yvesklein.com/en