Yves Klein
Painter
French painter and performance art practitioner who helped to establish the Nouveau Realisme movement in art.
He created his early performance art masterpiece, "Monotone Symphony," in 1949, at the age of twenty-one.
He was known for his monochromatic and photomontage pieces. His their monochromatic exhibition "Blue Epoch" opened at Milan's Gallery Apollinaire in 1957 and featured a series of identical, blue canvases.
He was born in Nice, France, to artist parents. He had a son named Yves Amu Klein who grew up to create robotic sculptures.
He was a contemporary of fellow artist Willem de Kooning.