Carol Vogel devotes the bulk of her Friday column in the New York Times to Yves Klein, a painter who having his moment of apotheosis, especially among American collectors. One reason Klein is coming into vogue is his pivotal role between abstraction and minimalism, not to mention a clutch of other artistic movements that emerged in the 1960s, 70s and beyond. Vogel quotes some auction house heads on this phenomenon among collectors:

“It fits in with aesthetic of those who collect Abstract Expressionist and Minimalist works,” said Brett Gorvy, co-head of postwar and contemporary art at Christie’s. “In London we saw the depth of this market, and it was really quite amazing.”

One of the highlights of Christie’s sale on May 11 will be “ANT 93, Le Buffle” (“The Buffalo”) from 1960-61, from Klein’s “Anthropométrie” series. […] The work is expected to bring about $10 million. While no one at the auction house is saying who the seller is, experts in the field say the painting belongs to the San Francisco collectors Richard and Pamela Kramlich.

That might even be a conservative estimate because Vogel also points out that Washington’s Hirshhorn Museum will host the first large-scale Klein exhibition in nearly  30 years:

Four years in the making, “Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers” will open in May at the Hirshhorn and will include more than 100 works arranged thematically. Loans are coming from the artist’s archives, institutions in Europe and the United States, and private collections.

“More and more we’re starting to understand how Klein opened up the gates for what came in the late ’60s, ’70s and ’80s in Minimalism, Conceptual art, light and space art, and performance,” said Kerry Brougher, deputy director and chief curator at the Hirshhorn. “He used a full host of media, not just painting but sculpture, performance, film, photography.”

A US Moment for Yves Klein (New York Times)