Jean Y. Klein was born in 1960 in Montreal, Canada, and immigrated to Paris at the age of 16. He studied at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1980, at the Ecole des Arts Berlin (HdK) in 1982, in New York in 1985, and then continued his studies at the Ecole des Arts Berlin (HdK) in 1986, obtaining a master's degree.

Jean-yves Klein has received numerous awards, including a grant for emerging Artists in 1987 and an invitation to become an artist-in-residence at the Stidonstark in Berlin in 1992. Jean-yves Klein, whose art is collected by the Pompidou in Paris, lives and works in Berlin and the Peloponnese.