A 14-foot-wide Yves Klein portray—the most important format the artist made in his signature pigment, Worldwide Klein Blue (IKB)—has bought at Christie’s Paris for €18.4 million ($21.4 million), setting a brand new public sale report for the artist in France.
Provided as the duvet lot for the home’s Avant-garde(s) together with Pondering Italian sale this week, the work titled California (IKB 71) carried an estimate on request of €16 million to €25 million ($18 million–$29 million).
As ARTnews‘s Sarah Douglas reported in September, California (IKB 71) is without doubt one of the few Kleins that comes with a title, named for the state the place he confirmed the work shortly after it was made in 1961. The Paris-based Klein visited the USA solely as soon as, when he went to see his longtime supporter Virginia Dwan, proprietor of a legendary Los Angeles gallery. However the portray’s provenance has an additional chapter that Christie’s, working with the Yves Klein Basis, not too long ago uncovered: On its approach from Paris to California, it stopped in New York, the place it appeared in a present with vendor Leo Castelli. Klein died the next yr, in 1962, after a whirlwind profession, at simply 34 years outdated.
California (IKB 71) has been in the identical New York assortment since 2005, when it was acquired by means of Tempo Gallery after being owned by Swiss collector George Marci. The work was on long-term mortgage to the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork from 2005 to 2008, the final time it was publicly exhibited.
Whereas Christie’s wouldn’t touch upon the consignor in September, artwork world insiders instructed ARTnews that it was being bought from the gathering of former United Applied sciences chairman George David, whose firm supported Met exhibitions on the time, together with exhibits of Van Gogh and Jasper Johns. David didn’t return a request for remark.
