An unused Blue Stamp by Yves Klein de KLEIN, Yves

[Paris: Privately published by the artist, 1957]. A single perforated postage stamp hand-painted with Klein's famous IKB (International Klein Blue) pigment. The stamps were originally created to use on invitations for his simultaneous 1957 exhibitions in Paris at the Gallerie Iris Clert and Gallerie Colette Allendy. Klein continued to produce and use the stamps for a couple of years afterward, and a number of unused sheets remained after his death. Mail Art scholar John Held, Jr. writes: "With the mailing of his blue stamp, Klein not only created one of the first artist postage stamps, but also involved it in a postal action, prefiguring not only the widespread genre of artistamps in the following decades, but the conceptual philatelic actions of the Fluxus group in the sixties..." This unsent stamp retains its original IKB color and texture. A fine example of this small but iconic item rightly regarded by many as a miniature Klein painting. Provenance on request.