For his Anthropométries, one of the twentieth century’s most daring artistic projects, Yves Klein invited naked female models to cover themselves in blue paint — a patented ultramarine pigment now known as ‘International Klein Blue’ — and imprint their bodies onto the canvas. Some of these paintings were produced during elaborate performances in front of an audience. Although the display of nudity shocked the French establishment, these works were not intended to titillate, Klein argued, but to liberate. The forms made by his models, or ‘human paintbrushes’, float freely and drift into the beyond, sealing the passage from the material to the immaterial realm. Featuring multiple solid imprints against a cream backdrop, this example now resides in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

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