In November, 1954, Yves Klein published Yves Peintures. This publication, untraceable nowadays was produced by the engraving workshop of Franco de Sarabia in Madrid. The foreword, signed by Pascal Claude – his friend Claude Pascal - is composed of black lines instead of text. Ten color plates are made of tipped-in colored paper of various dimensions and hues, pasted on loose-leaf paper. Each plate represents a different place of creation: Madrid, Nice, Tokyo, Paris, London.

In a manuscript dated January 13, 1955, Yves Klein writes:  ‘Last night, Wednesday, we went to an abstract cafe […], the abstracts were there. They are easy to recognize because they give off the air of abstract paintings and their paintings become visible in their eyes. Maybe I have illusions, but I feel like I can see it all. Anyway, we sat down with them… Then we got around to talking about the book Yves Peintures. Later on, as they insisted that I show it to them, I went to get it from the car and threw it on the table. Already, right from the first pages, the eyes of the abstracts changed: they lit up and deep down appeared the beautiful and pure unified colors’

From October 1955, Klein exhibited colored monochromes (orange, green, red, yellow, blue, pink) under the same title Yves Peintures at the Club des Solitaires in Paris.

This work represents his first public artistic action.