Yves Klein

Estate of the Artist
Private Collection
Galerie Gmurzynska, Cologne
Private Collection, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above in 2010

Emden, Kunsthalle Emden, Der Akt in der Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts, October 2002 - January 2003, p. 187, illustrated in color

Paul Wember, Yves Klein, Cologne, 1969, p. 104, no. ANT 31, illustrated

This work is in excellent condition. Please contact the Contemporary Art Department at +1 (212) 606-7254 for the report prepared by Terrence Mahon. The canvas is framed in a metal frame under Plexiglas.
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.
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“Detached and distant, the work of art must complete itself before my eyes and under my command”.

Yves Klein, “Chelsea Hotel Manifesto” in: Yves Klein, trans. Klaus Ottman, Overcoming the Problems of Art: The Writings of Yves Klein, Spring Publications, New York, 2007, p. 198-199

“ (…) it was the block of the human body, which is to say, the trunk and a part of the thighs that fas­cinated me. The hands, the arms, the head, the legs were of no importance. Only the body is alive, all-powerful, and it does not think.”

Yves Klein, ‘Yves the Monochrome 1960: Truth Becomes Reality’ in: Yves Klein, trans. Klaus Ottman, Overcoming the Problems of Art: The Writings of Yves Klein, Spring Publications, New York, 2007, p. 185

Veiled in the inimitable guise of Yves Klein’s revolutionary pigment, the abstracted curves of a body leave sensuous traces of their distinctive imprint across the richly tinted surface of Untitled Anthropometry (ANT 31). Dense in its conceptual framework and mesmerizing in its alluring beauty, this work declares a distillation of the central tenets of its creator’s visionary oeuvre. Inherently and inextricably theatrical, the present work stages a scene of physical and artistic impact existing today as a memento to a specific and seismically significant moment in contemporary art history. Using the human body as anthropomorphic brush, Klein created a composition that charts the course to a new frontier of painting, one in which the theretofore antithetical poles of abstraction and figuration achieve a stunning and groundbreaking coalescence. Approximating the rich fields of his celebrated IKB panels, the present work stuns in not only its clearly delineated corporeal form, but for its fully covered exposure of translucent blue color. Broadcasting the hypnotic intensity and full vibrancy of the artist’s eponymous International Klein Blue, Untitled Anthropometry (ANT 31) is a paradigmatic example of a seminal series which broke apart the very definition of painting, radicalized the enduring art historical motif of the nude, and laid sensational foundations that have continued to inform performance art to the present day.

It was in 1960, the same year in which he executed Untitled Anthropometry (ANT 31), that Klein’s Anthropométries achieved new levels of conceptual innovation and aesthetic supremacy. On March 9 of that year, the artist staged his legendary Anthropométries de l’Epoque Bleu performance at the Galerie International d’Art Contemporain in Paris. For this fêted happening, a select audience was invited to watch Klein, dressed in immaculate white tie and gloves, as he instructed three nude female models to cover themselves in his vivid ultramarine, drag each other across a paper-lined floor, and imprint themselves in particular poses against a huge wall-mounted canvas. Klein reveled in the precise orchestration of the event and the serene propriety of the invited guests. It is only through the comprehension of this contextual background that we can understand the dynamic performative nature of works such as Untitled Anthropometry (ANT 31), conceived and executed in the same manner. Works from this paramount series exist as the beautiful relics of these beguiling ceremonies. In thinking about the very nature of the present work’s creation, we are reminded of Klein’s oft-repeated motto: “Painting is no longer for me a function of the eye. My paintings are the ashes of my art.” (Yves Klein, “Yves the Monochrome 1960: Truth Becomes Reality,” in Yves Klein, trans. Klaus Ottman, Overcoming the Problems of Art: The Writings of Yves Klein, Spring Publications, New York, 2007, p. 185)

The son of two artists, Klein was extremely well versed in art history. The present work bears visual similarity to Henri Matisse's renowned series of cut-outs, such as Blue Nude from 1952, not only in its deployment of a similar palette, but also in its equitable brevity of form and comparative simplicity of composition. Moreover, the human form here, left identifiable only by the contours of its legs and torso, recalls numerous Greco-Roman marble figures whose full corporeal structures have fallen prey to the passage of time and who exist for posterity similarly and solely in the rendering of the central section of their bodies. However, in the context of art history, the Anthropométries are more readily understood as examples of Klein’s idiosyncratic subversion. In these works, he appropriates the trop of the nude – that motif that for centuries had been treated with idealized sensuality – splashes it in his blue pigment, and pushes it up against the picture plane with unabashed immediacy and radical intimacy. Where throughout history, the nude had stood as a test of painterly skill and draftsmanship; it is here achieved with blatant unconcern for those conventionally held indicators of artistic dexterity. In these works, Klein deliberately dons the weighty mantle of tradition only to warp and reject it.

In keeping with the best of Klein’s oeuvre, Untitled Anthropometry (ANT 31) is sublime in its aesthetic, charged with intellectual significance, and rich in art-historical self-awareness. In truth, it should barely be considered a painting at all, but rather a distilled gem of conceptual verve; the glimmering residue of a preclusive performance. It acted as a precursor to countless strands of avant-garde art, and exists today as tribute to an artist at the forefront of the Parisian zeitgeist, who covered the world in his patented pigment, and leapt forth into the void.