Yves Klein (1928–1962) was a French painter and performance artist who is probably most famous for developing a deep ultramarine color known as International Klein Blue.
Klein was a proto-minimalist. Many of his paintings were covered in a single pigment: blue, pink, or gold. His work was influenced by his spirituality—both his Catholicism, and his involvement in the mystical society called Rosicrucianism.
On the other hand, his performance art resulted in more figurative work. One example involved orchestrating an event in which nude women were covered in paint, using their bodies as brushes on a canvas.
He died of a heart attack at 34, at the Cannes Film Festival in 1962.
