Iris Clert was the owner of the Galerie Iris Clert

Galerie Iris Clert

The Iris Clert Gallery was an art gallery named after its Greek owner and curator, Iris Clert. The single-room gallery was located on 3 rue des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France...

 from 1955 to 1971. During its tenure, her gallery became an avant-garde hotspot in the international art scene, particularly to Yves Klein

Yves Klein

Yves Klein was a French artist considered an important figure in post-war European art. He is the leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany...

, Jean Tinguely

Jean Tinguely

Jean Tinguely was a Swiss painter and sculptor. He is best known for his sculptural machines or kinetic art, in the Dada tradition; known officially as metamechanics...

 and Arman

Arman

Arman was a French-born American artist. Born Armand Pierre Fernandez in Nice, France, Arman is a painter who moved from using the objects as paintbrushes to using them as the painting itself...

.

Originally of Greek

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 nationality, Clert became an overnight socialite

Socialite

A socialite is a person who participates in social activities and spends a significant amount of time entertaining and being entertained at fashionable upper-class events....

 with the success of her gallery.

Clert was active in the French Resistance

French Resistance

The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...

 during the Second World War.

mage:Iris Clert Portrait Rauschenberg.jpg|thumb|300px| Portrait of Iris Clert by Shunk-Kender © Roy Lichtenstein Foundation

In 1961, Robert Rauschenberg

Robert Rauschenberg

Robert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations...

, who would become one of the forerunners of the Neo-Dada

Neo-Dada

Neo-Dada is a label applied primarily to audio and visual art that has similarities in method or intent to earlier Dada artwork. It is the foundation of Fluxus, Pop Art and Nouveau réalisme. Neo-Dada is exemplified by its use of modern materials, popular imagery, and absurdist contrast...

 movement, was invited to participate in an exhibition at the Galerie, in which the artists were to create and display a portrait of Iris Clert.