In February 1962, Yves Klein prepares castings of Arman, Martial Raysse and Claude Pascal to realize Reliefs Portraits. (...)
Yves came up with the idea of producing a series of relief portraits of his artist friends, based on life-sized plaster effigies, for a work that had not yet found its definitive form. Nude model casts, irregularly cut at the level of the thighs, torso face, head slightly turned aside, especially in the case of Arman, arms along the body and fists clenched as in some sculptures Greek archaic: they had to be melted in bronze, covered with blue pigment and mounted on a plywood panel covered with gold leaf.Yves began with the three friends who formed his band Nice."Yves came up with the idea of producing a series of relief portraits of his artist friends, based on life-sized plaster effigies, for a work that had not yet found its definitive form. Nude model casts, irregularly cut at the level of the thighs, torso face, head slightly turned aside, especially in the case of Arman, arms along the body and fists clenched as in some sculptures Greek archaic: they had to be melted in bronze, covered with blue pigment and mounted on a plywood panel covered with gold leaf. Yves began with the three friends who formed his bunch of friends from Nice."
Catherine Krahmer, excerpt from "L'œuvre ultime d'Yves Klein", éditions L'échoppe, 2012