Born into a wealthy family from Provence, France, Marie Raymond began painting in the studio of painter Alexandre Stoppler, in Cagnes-sur-Mer. Married in 1926 to a young Dutch painter, Fred Klein, with whom she had a son, Yves Klein, (also an artist) two years later, she and her husband lead a bohemian life in Montparnasse, meeting artists Jacques Villon and Frank Kupka from Puteaux, pioneers of abstract art.

Back in Nice in 1932, she took courses at the School of Decorative Arts, where she met the abstract sculptor Emile Gilioli. She was commissioned to produce a mural for the pavilion of the Alpes-Maritimes in the International Exhibition of 1937. The war forced her family to settle in Cagnes-sur-Mer, where Raymond began painting ...