Auction introduction: This year, the fourth edition of Avant-Garde(s) Including Thinking Italian pays tribute to leading figures of 20th- and 21st-century art, including Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Nicolas de Staël and Pierre Soulages. The highlight both the sale and the season is Yves Klein’s largest monochrome, California (IKB 71), painted in 1961 and appearing at auction for the first time. This monumental canvas, measuring over four meters in length epitomizes the artist’s radical creativity and holds a preeminent place among Klein’s works ever to come to market. Another major highlight is a recently rediscovered lifetime cast of a Femme debout by Alberto Giacometti. At the heart of the auction, the Thinking Italian section showcases outstanding works from the Italian artistic landscape of the 20th and 21st centuries, ranging from Alighiero Boetti’s conceptual embroideries to Mario Schifano’s Pop influences, and culminating in a rare and iconic work by Jannis Kounellis.