Blue Monochrome

Yves Klein · 1961

You're looking at Blue Monochrome — a painting by the French artist Yves Klein, nineteen sixty-one. It's dry pigment in polyvinyl acetate on cotton over plywood, about 2 by 1.4 meters. Measured, it is among the most saturated surfaces in this museum — 96 where the typical work sits at 11. Klein was part of the Nouveau réalisme movement.

Medium Dry pigment in polyvinyl acetate on cotton over plywood · Dimensions 6' 4 7/8" x 55 1/8" (195.1 x 140 cm) · Credit The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection

Hanging beside it in Gallery 405: Work, Sky Machine

Works like this one elsewhere in the museum: Vir Heroicus Sublimis, No. 37/No. 19 (Slate Blue and Brown on Plum), Tehachapi II