Imagining the Female Body as a Paint Brush

Yves Klein the influential and dashing French artist used the term, anthropometries, for his canvases that were filled by slathering curvy nude models with paint and using them as human brushes (while he pranced around in formal wear). Klein died in 1962, of a heart attack when he was only 34, but within his jam-packed seven year career, he riveted audiences and art critics. He had the instincts of a modern marketing genius and patented a gorgeous ultramarine color, calling it “International Klein Blue.” The first major U.S. retrospective of his work in over 30 years is at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden ^[1] in Washington, D.C., until September 12.