Yves Klein

Gérard Bonnier, Stockholm

Sale: Sotheby's, London, Contemporary Art, 26 March 1992, Lot 33

Galerie Ronny van de Velde, Antwerp

Private Collection, Belgium

Sale: Sotheby's, Paris, Art Contemporain, 27 May 2009, Lot 14

Private Collection, Milan

Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Paul Wember, Yves Klein, Cologne 1969, p. 116

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the blue is brighter and more vibrant in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. There are artist's pinholes in the corners. Close inspection reveals some light discolouration to the bottom left corner tip and some minute specks of foxing in isolated places elsewhere.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Untitled Shroud Anthropométrie (Ant Su 5) is remarkable for its exuberant IKB pigment and totemic female silhouette, imprinted, shroud-like, upon a canvas veil. A shining example of his iconic Anthropométrie series the present work is an outstanding testament to Klein’s ground-breaking practice. Its creation coincides with the patenting of Klein’s revolutionary IKB – International Klein Blue – a tone of deep and resonant blue formulated to induce a meditative and sublime state of transformation in the viewer.

On 5 August 1955, Yves Klein wrote to a friend that monochromes conveyed “an idea of absolute unity in perfect serenity.” Following on from the hallowed Monochrome and Relief Éponge works, the Anthropométrie series extended the qualities of unity and serenity to the human body. Building upon philosophical beliefs that Klein encountered in his study of Judo, Rosicrucianism, and Zen Buddhism, his incorporation of nude females as collaborators – or ‘living brushes’ – gestured to the body as a centre of physical, sensorial, and spiritual energy. The present work belongs to a particular strand of the Anthropométrie series for which Klein conceived of the finished work and imprinted female form as a veil, very much evocative of the miraculous Turin Shroud - the burial cloth of Jesus Christ housed in the Chapel of the Holy Shroud in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, that has been venerated as a reliquary since the Middle Ages.

The first Anthropométries were orchestrated by Klein on 5 June 1958 at an informal performance on the Île Saint-Louis, in the apartment of his friend Robert Godet during a dinner party. In 1960 their creation achieved new heights, in an epic performance at the Galerie Internationale d’Art Contemporain in Paris. Several nude models covered themselves in paint and then imprinted blank surfaces under Klein’s directions, before an audience of tuxedoed Parisian guests and against the conceptual live audio of Klein’s Monotone Symphony, twenty minutes of a single note played by cellists, violinists, and chorists.

Yves Klein’s champion, art critic Pierre Restany, regarded the Anthropométries as art historically loaded gestures running “through 40,000 years of modern art to be reunited with the anonymous handprint – as sufficient as it was necessary in that dawn of our universe – that at Lascaux or Altamira signified the awakening of man to self-awareness of the world” (Pierre Restany, Yves Klein, New York 1982, p. 110). The primordial and shapely feminine form defining the Anthropométries aligns the series with shamanic fertility figurines, while their truncated torsos recall the fragmented artefacts of classical sculpture which redefined European ideals of beauty and the sublime during the Renaissance. Ant Su 5 particularly is remarkable for its symmetry and immediate visual impact, the central form reflecting a position only achievable by resting the model frontally upon a horizontal bolster to capture the outward movement of her thighs.

Ultimately Ant Su 5 occupies a crossroads between abstraction and figuration; chance and plan; the sensual and esoteric. Executed in his alchemically potent IKB hue, the present work’s mesmerising presence captures the essence of Klein’s era-defining practice, which incorporated the body in previously unthought-of ways and radically transgressed the boundaries of traditional art making.