Pierre Restany, 72; Art Critic Boosted Yves Klein, Christo

Pierre Restany, 72, a French art critic perhaps best known for championing artists such as Yves Klein, Christo and Jean Tinguely, died of heart failure May 29 in Paris.

New York art dealer Leo Castelli once called Restany, who lived in Paris and Milan, “one of the most influential persons in French cultural life.”

In 1960, Restany coined the label Nouveau Realisme to describe a group of artists with a postmodern bent. Though often compared to Pop Art, Nouveau Realisme didn’t celebrate artists who turned soup cans into art objects, but instead “reveled in rubbish, torn posters, abandoned meals,” the Guardian of London’s Adrian Searle wrote in 1998.