• Technique:

Handcrafted sculpture made of resin from the mold of the original sculpture. Finished in Yves Klein blue (IKB). Signed and numbered edition of 999 copies under the paw. Cover included with the sculpture.
Dimensions of the plexiglass hood: 49 x 28 x 19 cm.

You will be given a certificate of authenticity.

• Artist biography

Yves Klein tirelessly sought the essence of art and wanted to expose its immateriality. The artist thus found in sculpture a true space of freedom where monochrome permeates three-dimensional space.

In 2022, 100 years after its success at the Salon d'Automne, François Pompon's Polar Bear meets Yves Klein's blue. One captured the essence of form, the other that of color, and beyond, the essence of art. The art of reality, of freedom, of life.

This piece was designed after François Pompon's *L'Ours blanc* (The White Bear), a giant sculpture of a polar bear. Pompon's idea of stripping away details from his animal sculptures reduces the similarity to the model, reinterpreting the animal. Even if the result wasn't faithful to the original image, he was able to capture the flow of the moment, the pose, and the texture. This giant polar bear was first exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1922 and was cast in iron. The artist created this bear several times using different materials; the most famous version, made of stone, can be seen at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

In 1954, Klein visited Édouard Adam's studio in Paris to try to find a medium that would achieve the purity of ultramarine blue pigment. It was Adam who developed the medium sought by Yves Klein, succeeding in preserving the intensity and texture of the original pigment.

This sculpture is covered in Klein blue, using the same matte texture as the paint registered by the artist in 1960 under IKB (International Klein Blue) which he used in most of his works.

This exceptional edition is offered to you accompanied by a certificate of authenticity with an individual number certified by the publisher's stamp and signed by the representatives of the rights holders of the two artists.