“I had left the visible, physical blue at the door, outside, in the street. The real blue was inside, the blue of the profundity of space, the blue of my kingdom, of our kingdom!  “– Yves Klein

Yves Klein was the most influential and controversial French artist to emerge in the 1950s. A founding member of the Nouveau Realisme movement in France, he was also a pioneer in Performance Art and installations, as well as a forerunner of Body Art, and Conceptual Art.

Perhaps Klein was remembered above all for his exclusive use of a single color, the rich shade of ultramarine that he made his own: International Klein Blue (IKB).

Klein considered that this colour had a quality close to pure space and he associated it with immaterial values beyond what can be seen or touched.