![](https://greg.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/walker-art-ctr-yves-klein-monocrhomes-install-2011-1024x576.jpg)
In the 2010-11 retrospective of Yves Klein’s work organized by the Hirshhorn and the Walker Art Center, there was a wall (in DC) and a nook (in Minneapolis) filled with early, small-ish monochromes in a variety of colors that weren’t blue. They surrounded a vitrine with Klein’s amazing 1954 catalogue for an imaginary monochromes exhibition, Yves Peintures.
![](https://greg.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/yves-klein-red-monochrome-1955-framed-m109-christies-1024x1024.jpg)
This little red square was not among them, but can you imagine if it was, looking like an emergency button in its gigantic, beveled frame?
![](https://greg.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/yves-klein-red-monochrome-1955-verso-m109-christies-1-1024x925.jpg)
I love the view of the back—frankly, it’s why I’m posting this—where it is signed with a star. And where you can see chips revealing underpaintings of white and not-IKB. This painting is only 10 cm across, but it has some real history in it.
![](https://greg.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/yves-klein-yellow-monochrome-1956-m19-743x1024.jpg)
Though the auction description says it’s oil on panel, you can clearly see the weave of a textile, too, and a folded part, seemingly held together with paint. The Yves Klein Archive shows other works of similar date and size, like this 22×16 cm yellow monochrome from 1956, with “gauze mounted on panel,” so maybe that’s what’s going on here.
![](https://greg.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/yves-klein-monochrome-rose-1956-826x1024.jpg)
This untitled pink monochrome from 1956 is the closest to the dimensions of the tiny red one, though, 5×4 inches. I had tried to come up with a common comparable object to convey the scale of this little red square: a CD case is 5 inches; a floppy disc is 3.5 inches. But while those are obsolete now, they also didn’t exist in 1955. That’s not what this painting was like when Klein created it. Maybe a coaster? The pink one is easier, because it could be postcard-size. Maybe it was the size of a tile.
Anyway, from a business decision, this couldn’t be more perfect; so buy it and let me know what size it turns out to be after you study it at your leisure.
4 May 2023, Lot 5: Yves Klein, sans titre (M 109), 1955, est. EUR50-70,000, but it’s already at EUR 70,000 [update: sold for EUR 88,200] [christies]
Previously, and very related: the artist’s 1954 book of found yet imaginary monochromes, Yves Peintures
Proposte Monocrome, eBay, Rose