Yves Klein

Rotraut Klein Moquay, Paris
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 2004

Cologne, Museum Ludwig ; Düsseldorf, Kunstsammlung; London, Hayward Gallery; Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia,Yves Klein, 1994-95, p. 228, no. 101, illustrated in colour, p. 226, illustration of the artist creating the present work
Paris, Galerie de France, Yves Klein, Peintures de Feu 1961-1962,   2004, p. 49, no. 13, illustrated in colour
Angers, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Marie Raymond-Yves Klein,  2004-05, p. 163, illustrated in colour

Yves Klein, Yves Klein, 1928-1962: Selected Writings, London 1974, p. 66, illustration of the artist creating the present work
Oslo, National Museum of Contemporary Art; Tampere, Sara Hildénin Art Museum; Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art, Yves Klein, 1997-98, p. 191, illustration of the artist creating the present work
Pierre Descargues,Yves Klein,  Ides et Calendes, Neuchâtel 2003, p. 163, illustrated in colour

The colours in the catalogue illustration are accurate. This work is in very good condition. Close inspection reveals a very small spot of skinning towards the centre of the left edge and a minor rub mark towards the right of the bottom edge, which appears inherent to the artist's working process. No restoration is apparent under ultraviolet light.
"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.
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"I made the flames lick the surface of the painting in such a way that it recorded the spontaneous traces of the fire. But what is it that provokes in me this pursuit of the impression of fire? Why must I search for its traces? Because every work of creation, quite apart from its cosmic position, is the representation of pure phenomenology – every phenomenon manifests itself of its own accord. This manifestation is always distinct from form, and is the essence of the immediate, the trace of the immediate."

The artist cited in: Exhibition Catalogue, London, Tate,Yves Klein, 1974, p. 67

With the dramatic traces of Yves Klein's momentous fire action burned into its golden surface, this spectacular fire painting F 124 encapsulates the artist's most experimental and daring creativity, as well as all the brilliantly innovative ideals that are familiar from the best moments of his oeuvre. It is an extremely beautiful exposition of the artist's undisputed genius and although his art remains crucially indefinable, this is a paragon of both Nouveau réalisme and Zero and crystallises the redefinition of painting and sculpture that occurred in the decades following the Second World War. It was executed in July 1961 at the Centre d'Essais du Gaz de France in Saint-Denis near Paris, a research facility owned by the French government that Klein had negotiated to work in for two days. Here Klein pioneered the possibilities of scorching specially prepared, industrial-strength card from Sweden that was covered with magnesium and a cadmium-hydrate silicate, with a slightly magnetized surface that could only be melted using a blowtorch. While the industrial coke-gas blowtorch subsumed the surface in flame, Klein's friend the sculptor Alex Kosta, who was dressed as a fireman, sprayed the work with a fire hose to produce the lyrical drip-marks that are fixed on the surface.

By burning the memories of action into the picture plane, Klein issues a previously unknown aesthetic language to further his artistic philosophy, forging a dialect that holds the element of fire at its heart. With fire Klein selected the ultimate catalyst of humankind's development out of primeval subsistence and also the fundamental seed for both progress and trauma in the Twentieth Century. Klein enlists this element that is potentially fatal to our existence to breathe life into his art. The surface resonates with warmth through its golden and ochre hues, while the oscillations of Klein's flame and the smouldering of the surface have generated an abstract schema outside of the artist's control.

The sheer force of the artwork gives physical form to intangible concepts and affords a wide array of intensely contemplative and emotional responses. With his Fire Paintings Klein realised those invisible concepts that had obsessed him throughout his career and which he had previously pursued through the irrepressible allure of the monochrome and the alchemical mystery of gold. With fire Klein arrived at a medium that was immaterial and essential: light and life itself. This realisation turned out to be the apogee of his spectacular and tragically brief career: "I want to record the imprint of man's emotionality on today's civilization, and then record the trace of what precisely was at the origin of this same civilization, that is the civilization of fire. All this because emptiness always was my main concern, and I remain convinced that, in the heart of emptiness, just like in the heart of man, there are burning fires to be found" (The artist's Chelsea Hotel Manifesto, New York, 1961, cited in: Jean Paul Ledeur, Yves Klein: Catalogue des editions et des sculptures editees,  Saint-Paul de Vence, 200, p. 192).