Yves Klein’s monumental 14-foot-wide California (IKB 71) is set to hit the auction block for the very first time. Though Klein passed away at just 34, his most ambitious blue canvas will now take center stage as a headline work in Christie’s marquee sale during Paris Art Week. The painting has already ignited conversation in the art world, not least because it marks the first-ever auction of Klein’s largest monochrome from a private collection. Since 2005, it has remained in the same New York collection, having been acquired through Pace Gallery following its ownership by Swiss collector Georges Marci. “It’s this grand homecoming,” said Katharine Arnold, Vice Chairman of 20th/21st Century Art at Christie’s, referring to the work’s return to Paris.
The notion of homecoming resonates deeply with Klein’s history. The artist visited the United States only once, in 1961, to see his longtime supporter Virginia Dwan at her Los Angeles gallery. For a painting tied to that visit to spend years in America before reappearing in Paris adds a poetic symmetry to its story.
Klein once declared, “Through color, I experience total identification with space; I am truly free.” Of all his works, only one surpasses California (IKB 71) in size, a monumental monochrome installed in the Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. Yet none capture his radical exploration of International Klein Blue with the same power. The luminous canvas was last seen publicly during its long-term loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from 2005 to 2008.
Its radiance stems from Klein’s collaboration with Paris paint dealer Édouard Adam. Together they developed a resin binder (Rhodopas M/M60A, a PVA by Rhône-Poulenc) that preserved ultramarine’s raw luminosity. The pigment appears to hover on the surface, optically alive, more powdered sky than dried paint. Remarkably, Adam still sells variants of the binder today.
To date, Klein’s most expensive works are FC1 (Fire Color 1), sold in May 2012 for over $36 million and Le Rose du bleu (RE 22), sold in June 2012 for about $37 million. With California (IKB 71) estimated at $29 million, one wonders, will this 14-foot blue monochrome break the record? All will be unveiled when California (IKB 71) returns to the spotlight, positioned as the centerpiece of Christie’s “Avant-Garde(s) Including Thinking Italian,” scheduled for October 23 in Paris.
