1. "
"
YVES KLEIN (1928-1962)"
"
F121!
signed and dated ‘Yves Klein 1962’ (on the reverse)"
charred Swedish cardboard laid down on board"
41 x 33 cm (16.5 x 13 in)"
Executed in 1962"
£337,205"
$522,738"
"
Provenance
!1
Private Collection, Europe. "
Private sale, Maître Binoche, 6 April 1973, lot 37."
Private sale, Maître Binoche, 23 April 1980, lot 97. "
Private Collection, France."
Anon. sale, Christie’s Paris, 31 May 2010, lot 8."
"
Grainger, “Yves Klein: F121, Sale 1107-Lot 165.”1

2. The painting F121 is oriented as a portrait. It is forty-one centimetres long by thirty-three
centimetres wide. Its surface is charred at varying degrees. The surface is a Swedish
cardboard laid on a board for support. The painting consists only of shades of yellow, the
darkest in the centre getting lighter the further from the centre, splotches of lighter yellow
scattered across the surface, and streaks of medium yellow drip vertically down the
surface. The result is a surface with a “delicate, ghostly central ellipse that seems almost
otherworldly.”
"2
"
The surface of F121 was burned with the use of a blowtorch. Klein burned the magnetised
surface
of a specialised cardboard while the flame was being controlled by a water hose.3
The water dripping and splashing on the cardboard are fixed onto board through the burn. "
"
In the 1960s, Klein replaced the female body with the flame. He turned to the blowtorch to
“paint” the canvas. Klein started using fire in 1957, but did not perfect his technique until
1961 with the help of a specialized research laboratory of the National Gasworks of
France.
Klein used a Swedish cardboard coated with magnesium and cadium-hydrate4
silicate which slightly magnetized the surface that only melted using the blowtorch.
This5
chemical coating also lessened the likelihood of combustion. The blowtorch burned the
board leaving a charred surface."
Klein is quoted explaining his fascination with fire. He explains,
"fire and heat are explanatory in a great variety of contexts, because they
contain enduring memories of personal and decisive events we have all
experienced. Fire is both intimate and universal. It resides in our hearts; it
resides in a candle. It rises up from the depths of matter, and it conceals
Grainger, Leonie. “Yves Klein: F121, Sale 1107-Lot 165.” Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Day2
Sale (2013). http://www.christies.com/lotfinder
magnetic surface decreases possibility of combustion3
Yves Klein Archive. “Documents.” http://www.yveskleinarchives.org/documents/bio_us.html4
Westphal, Yves Klein: F130, Sale L12020-Lot 64.5

3. itself, latent, contained, like hate or patience. Of all phenomena [fire] is the
only one that so obviously embodies two opposite values: good and evil. It
shines in paradise, and burns in hell. It is gentleness and torture.”
"6
"
Leonie Grainger, Specialist in Post-War and Contemporary Art at Christie’s in London,
quoted Klein in an audio clip that accompanies the catalogue entry for F121. Fire
paintings were the “presence of absence and the mark of life,”
this was the dichotomy7
Klein was trying to achieve through his artistic career. He saw fire as a powerful tool of
destruction at the same time as the ultra living element.
He reached this point not8
through the monochromes of blue, pink and gold but through the absence of pigment.
While his rich pigments are the highlight of his career the fire paintings finish out his career
with the embodiment of his vision and purpose. Fire was the ideal medium for his work. "
"
Klein found fire to be the ultimate medium for his “paintings.” In the final year of his life he
combined his early use of pigment with fire. The first work of both fire and pigment, FC1,
has been recorded and shown as a part of the video, “Anthropometires.”
In the last9
weeks of his life, it shows Klein using models to paint flame retardant chemicals on to the
canvas and then using a blowtorch to burn the areas of the cardboard that are left
exposed. Then he painted IKB onto the cardboard with the models. Combining his most
prominent mediums into one work of art, a masterpiece of fire and pigment. "
"
as quoted by S. Stich, Yves Klein, Stuttgart 1994, p. 227 (found in Grainger, Yves Klein: F121)6
Grainger, Leonie. “Discuss Yves Klein’s F121.” audio clip.7
Grainger, Discuss Yves Klein’s F121, audio clip.8
Yves Klein Archive. “Anthropometries.” http://www.yveskleinarchives.org/works/works1_us.html9