Yves Klein: The Foundations of Judo

In 1952 the 24-year-old Yves Klein left Paris for Japan, to pursue his first love; not art but judo. Klein spent a year and a half in Tokyo, studying mainly at the Kodokan under the ninth-dan judo master Oda. After becoming one of the first Europeans to receive a coveted fourth-dan black belt, Klein returned to France and opened the Judo Académie de Paris. In 1954 the prestigious publisher Grasset published his book Les Fondements du Judo, illustrated with hundreds of photographs of Klein and leading Japanese teachers demonstrating the six major “Katas” (the movements that form the basis of judo). The Foundations of Judo is the first ever English translation of this historical document. Translated and typeset in a facsimile of the 1954 original by British artist Ian Whittlesea, it expresses the fundaments of the art that was Klein's foremost passion.