Harry Shunk
Leap Into the Void

Leap Into the Void

Photoraph Shunk-Kender © Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Yves Klein © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

Leap Into the Void
Leap Into the Void
ArtistFrench, 1924 - 2006
ArtistFrench, 1928–1962
CultureFrench
Titles
  • Leap Into the Void
  • Saut dans le Vide, Fonteney-aus-Roses, Paris
Date1960
PlaceParis, France
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage/Sheet: 13 15/16 × 10 3/4 in. (35.4 × 27.3 cm)
Mount: 13 15/16 × 10 3/4 in. (35.4 × 27.3 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by Joan Morgenstern, The Manfred Heiting Collection
Object number2002.2262
Not on view

Explore Further

Department
Photography
Object Type
Description

On October 19, 1960,
photographers Harry Shunk and Jonas Kender were employed by Yves Klein to
document Klein’s serene leap heavenward from the second story of this otherwise
banal Parisian street. Later they produced a photomontage by collaging together
a photograph of the street with the image of Klein leaping off the roof on to a
ready tarpaulin.

Klein self-published the image in a four-page
broadsheet, Dimanche, under the
caption: Un homme dans l’espace! Le
peintre de l’espace se jette dans le vide (A man in space! The painter of space
throws himself into the void).
He then distributed the paper to newsstands
across Paris, where it was sold next to the real Dimanche on November 27, 1960. 


This distribution furthered the impression that
the leap actually took place. The circuitous dialogue between media
constraints, artistic intent, and art objecthood provoked by this work made the
photograph iconic and incredibly influential for performance based artists in
the following decades.




ProvenanceArtist; Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles.

Bought by Manfred Heiting from Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles, on 7/10/1989
Exhibition HistoryExhibited in "Paris Photographs from the Manfred Heiting Collection" at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, July 17-October 6, 2002.

"Ruptures and Continuities: Photography Made after 1960 from the MFAH Collection," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Brown Foundation Galleries, February 21 - May 9, 2010.

"Faking It: Manipulated Photography before Photoshop," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2 June - 25 August, 2013.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
verso of mount in ink on typed label "Harry Shunk"
verso of mount bottom right typed label "Yves Klein / 'Leap into the Void' / Paris, October 23, 1960 / Photo: Harry Shunk"

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

If you have questions about this work of art or the MFAH Online Collection please contact us.

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Ron Arad
2001
Carbon Fibre, Nomex, and resin-impregnated paper
2023.160
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1996
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2007.694
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Friederich Seidenstucker
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2002.2222
Leap Into the Water
Hein Gorny
c. 1940
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2002.1183
Leap of the Terrasse
Lotte Stam-Beese
1927
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cropped recto of sheet
Susan Hayre
2009, printed 2011
Gelatin silver print
2011.1031
Where the Falls of Minnehaha Laugh and Leap into the Valley,"-Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Keystone View Company
c. 1914
Gelatin silver stereograph
2004.1220.269
Furuike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto (An old pond a frog leaps in, the sound of water)
Stanton Macdonald-Wright
1966–1967
Woodcut in colors on Japanese paper, edition 44/50
2021.420.1
Look before You Leap
Thomas Nast
November 4, 1882
Wood engraving on newsprint
89.743.1
Fawn's Leap, Catskill Mountains
John William Hill
1867
Watercolor on paper
2003.709
Eleanor, Port Huron
Harry Callahan
1954
Gelatin silver print
2022.769
Cape Cod
Harry Callahan
1972
Gelatin silver print
2022.774