L’ours Pompon - Edition Yves Klein, an iconic sculpture that merges the work of two great masters. It is made after the original of François Pompon’s polar bear and finished with Yves Klein's blue, authorized by Yves Klein Archives Foundation and the François Pompon Association.

L’ours Pompon - Edition Yves Klein has been crafted following François Pompon’s L’ours blanc, a giant sculpture of a polar bear made of cast and first shown at the Autumn Salon in Paris in 1922. The most famous one, created in stone, can be seen at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

François Pompon (1855–1933) worked as a practitioner for Camille Claudel and Auguste Rodin. In 1905, François Pompon definitively opted for animal beauty and the simplification of forms. When creating L’ours blanc the artist ripped off the details of the animal and still he caught the flow of the moment, pose and texture in his sculpture.

In this edition, L’ours Pompon is covered by Yves Klein blue, the ultramarine colour with mat texture registered by the artist under the name IKB (International Klein Blue) in 1960. This paint was the result of Yves Klein walking into Édouard Adam’s atelier in Paris in 1954 searching for a medium that achieved the pureness of ultramarine blue pigment.