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Description: Yves Klein (1928-1962)
ANT 159
signed and dated 'Yves Klein 1960' (lower bottom)
pigment on paper laid down on canvas
42 5/8 x 29¼in. (107.5 x 74.5cm.)
Executed in 1960

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Provenance: Daniel Varenne, Paris.
Anon. sale, Sotheby's London, 6 February 2003, lot 29.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.

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Notes: VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium
This work is recorded in the Yves Klein archives under no. ANT 159

'I personally would never attempt to smear paint over my own body and become a living brush; on the contrary, I would rather put on my tuxedo and wear white gloves. I would not even think of dirtying my hands with paint. Detached and distant, the work of art must complete itself before my eyes and under my command. Thus, as soon as the work is realised, I stand there, present at the ceremony, spotless, calm, relaxed, worthy of it, and ready to receive it as it is born into the tangible world' (Klein, quoted in N. Rosenthal, 'Assisted Levitation: The Art of Yves Klein, pp. 89-135, Yves Klein 1928-1962: A Retrospective, exh. cat., Houston, 1982, p. 124).

Bursting with energy, dynamism and extraordinary raw texture of pigment, Ant 159 assaults the eyes in much the same manner as his living brushes assaulted the artwork in its creation. Mimicking the action painting of his Abstract Expressionist predecessors such as Jackson Pollock, here Yves Klein takes himself out of the process and creates a wonderfully lyrical abstraction with the literal use of the figure. Stretched across the surface of this work vaulting from bottom right to top left is clearly the form of a human figure, the arms held out as if in supplication or release. This strange, moving shadow form of the figure adds to the intense dynamism of the surface, as do the other, lighter, more scattered marks which almost resemble a background.

In 1960 and 1961, Klein organised several events and happenings in which he created his Anthropométries, as his friend Pierre Restany had dubbed them. In several, he would preside like a ringmaster in black tie, an orchestra in the background, as his naked models entered. They would then be covered in paint and apply themselves to the paper which had been arranged for them to press against. In ANT 159, the paper was clearly on the ground, and the model either moved herself or was dragged from one spot to another, resulting in the gestural-seeming application of the paint and the sense of movement that is contained within the work, recalling Ant 76 now in the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.

The Anthropométries marked the confluence of several different ideas for Klein. Only a little before his first attempt to make one, he had been living with his friend Arman, who had developed an almost DaDa process by which he covered everyday objects in paint and threw them against a support, tracing their brief presence in this chance-driven and iconoclastic way. As the inventor of the Monochrome and of the unique colour, International Klein Blue, IKB, Klein was attempting to discover a new means of creating art from a distance, of allowing the world to create its own image of the immaterial without his direct participation. The final epiphany for Klein came in the form of the naked models with whom he had filled his studio. These were not intended as direct or figurative prompts, but instead to stimulate the artist: 'The shape of the body, its curves, its colours between life and death, are not of interest to me. It is the pure affective atmosphere that is invaluable' (Klein, quoted in S. Stich, Yves Klein, Ostfildern, 1994, p. 171). Klein claimed that their flesh and physical presence honed his understanding of the universe around him, and that it was perceptible even in his Monochromes. This sensual content, the presence of the healthy women floating around his studio and tampering with his tools and brushes, led him to create his 'living brushes' (Klein, quoted in Stich, op.cit., 1994, p. 176):

'My models laughed more than a little when they saw how I created the exquisite blue monochrome, limited to one colour, after their images! They laughed, but they felt more and more attracted to the blue. One day it was clear to me that my hands and tools were no longer sufficient to work with the colour. I needed the model to paint the monochrome painting' (Klein, quoted in Yves Klein, ed. O. Berggruen, M. Hollein, I. Pfeiffer, exh.cat., Frankfurt, 2004, p. 126).
Klein used one of these 'living brushes' as early as 1958, at an event in which the entirety of the picture surface was covered in IKB applied by these means; however, in 1960 he began to oversee the creation of Anthropométries in which much of the surface was left deliberately in reserve, resulting in a background for the traces of the women's bodies while also perhaps recalling the calligraphy of his beloved Japan. Likewise, they recalled the shadows of people left on the walls of Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped, and the sweat outlines of people thrown on training mats in judo, in which Klein was a black belt and instructor.

For Klein, another crucial factor in the Anthropométries was that he merely directed the proceedings: regarding actual composition, the models themselves created the works according to their own movements and often judgement, allowing the artist to remove himself from the equation and allow the Universe to express itself more directly: 'That was, finally, the solution to the problems of distance in painting: My brushes were alive and remote-controlled' (Klein, quoted in Berggruen et al. (ed.), op.cit., 2004, p. 126).

Importantly, most of Klein's Anthropométries show only the trunk of the bodies of the women, rather than the head or lower legs. This adds a deliberate sense of universality to the figures, which become substitutes for all people alike. As well as the sense of universality, the general impression of the mythic validity of the image, this notion of the headless torso means that Ant 159 concentrates on the flesh, on bodily processes, rather than the arenas of thought or movement. There are only tiny traces of the legs or arms, and none of the head:

'it was the block of the body itself, that is to say the trunk and part of the thighs, that fascinated me. The hands, the arms, the head, the legs were of no importance. Only the body is alive, all-powerful, and nonthinking. The head, the arms, the hands are only intellectual articulations around the bulk of flesh that is the body!... True, the whole body is made of flesh, but the essential mass is the trunk and the thighs. It is there that we find the real universe, hidden by the universe of our limited perception' (Klein, quoted in Stich, op.cit., 1994, p. 175).