Khaberni - A monochrome blue painting by French artist Yves Klein was sold for $21 million last Thursday, according to Christie's auction house, the highest amount for a painting from his works in France. Christie's added that the painting "California IKB 71", measuring four meters wide and about two meters high, is the artist's largest monochrome painting in private ownership.
Klein, who died in 1962 at just 34 years old, patented a special thick blue paint he developed for his paintings, named "International Klein Blue" or "IKB." The artist stated that his monochrome paintings were each entirely unique, possessing different "essence and atmosphere," according to Christie's.
Klein created the "California" painting in early 1961, prior to his first and only trip to the United States to attend his first exhibitions across the Atlantic, in New York and Los Angeles, according to the auction house.
Klein applied a number of small pebbles onto the surface of the painting, making it "remind one of the seabed beneath a blue ocean abyss." In 2013, a sculpture in blue sponge shaped like a flower, mounted on a metal stem and a stone base, sold for 22 million dollars at Sotheby's auction house in New York, setting a record for his works at auction.
The artist once explained that his inspiration for his work "Untitled Blue Sponge Sculpture" was simply noticing the beauty of the blue color in the sponge he himself used in his studio while painting.
