As a new exhibition draws the crowds in New York, the artist’s widow Rotraut reflects on why his work still resonates
I was walking past a gallery in Düsseldorf in 1957 when I saw a blue monochrome painting in the window. I stopped and just stood in front of it. I was deeply touched by the way the artist could evoke something immaterial, spiritual, through colour. It took me into the sky and made me think of our galaxy, of where we are in the universe. It wasn’t until a year later that I met the artist who painted it. I was working in Nice, France, as an au pair for the artist Arman and his family.
You hold on to some discipline, to a little order. He had a reputation for doing things repeatedly because he wanted to find perfection. Being with Yves was like when you go to the theatre and a really good actor enters the scene but doesn’t do anything, he’s just there. You feel this presence. It came from his understanding of the immaterial: what the body can express without doing too much. It’s a kind of spirituality. When he worked, Yves would play symphonies by Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner.
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