Yves Klein was born in 1928 in Nice. In 1947, Yves Klein took up judo, seeing its practice as a form of intellectual and moral education aimed at perfecting self-control and mastery of the emotions. In 1952, he left for Japan to advance his judo skills, obtaining a fourth-dan black belt. Starting in 1955, Yves Klein presented his work in an artistic setting: monochrome works in different colours entitled Yves, peintures. In 1956, he embarked on his “Blue period”, choosing an ultramarine blue that already existed, a highly saturated, uniform and spiritual shade, which he said was “the perfect expression of blue”. But the monochromes were just one aspect of his work in which he deployed a number of different techniques: “Peintures de feu” (Fire Paintings), “Cosmogonies”, “Sculptures-Eponges” (Sponge Sculptures), “Anthropométries”, “Planetary Reliefs”... Yves Klein married Rotraut Uecker, a young German artist in 1962. He died a few months later at the age of 34, leaving an oeuvre that is intense, bold and embodies notions of the infinite, an oeuvre that continues to inspire new generations of artists and those passionate about our times.