Yves Klein’s blue

(28 April 1928 – 6 June 1962)

Yves Klein made nearly 200 monochrome paintings in his life. Beginning in 1947, he considered them to be a way of rejecting representation in painting, and thus gaining creative freedom. Although hard to date, it has been said that his earlier works have more of an uneven surface when compared to a finer, more uniformed texture in his latter works.

Assisted by Edouard Adam, a Parisian art paint supplier, Klein and him together developed International Klein Blue (IKB). IKB is a deep blue hue whose visual impacts is characterised by its ingredient of ultramarine, and the methods of thick and textured application of paint to canvas that Klein used. IKB used a matte, synthetic resin binder, in which the colour was suspended, allowing the pigment to maintains much of its original qualities, intensifying the colour and giving a velvety texture and unusual sense of depth. This, as well as its ultramarine pigment, which Klein registered as a trademark colour in 1957, contributes to the uniqueness of the blue. He was said to consider this colour as having the ‘qualities close to pure space’ and related it with ‘immaterial values beyond what can be seen or touched’

In 1958, Klein’s work started to effectively use the blue as the predominant component of his piece. Whilst Klein had worked extensively with blue earlier in his career, it was now that the blue became the work itself, and thus worked on a series of pieces using IKB as the main theme. From performance art that used painted naked models who rolled, sprawled and walked on blank canvases, to more conventional styled single-coloured canvases and sculptures.

Klein made nearly 200 monochrome paintings in his life. Beginning in 1947, he considered them to be a way of rejecting representation in painting, and thus gaining creative freedom. Although hard to date, it has been said that his earlier works have more of an uneven surface when compared to a finer, more uniformed texture in his latter works.

6 examples of Klein's blue in graphic design: