Balthasar Klossowski de Rola (29 February 1908 , Poland– 18 Febrary 2001)

Figurative painter

In his first years, his art was widely supported by such famus names as Rainer Maria Rilke, Maurice Denis, Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse. His father, Erich Klossowski, a noteworhy art historian (he wrote a monograph on Daumier), and his mother Elisabeth Dorothea Spiro (known as Baladine Klossowska) were part of the cultural elite in Paris. Balthus' older brother, Pierre Klossowski, was a philosopher and writer, influenced by theology and the works of Marquis de Sade.

In 1921 "Mitsou", a book which included forty drawings by Balthus and a preface by Balthus' mentor Rilke, was published. In 1926 Balthus visited Florence, copying frescos by Piero della Francesca, which inspired him. From 1930 to 1932 he lived in Morocco,  worked as a secretary, and sketched his painting La Caserne (1933).

Balthus showed no interest in modernist styles such as Cubism. His paintings often depicted pubescent young girls in erotic and voyeuristic poses. One of the most notorious works from his first exhibition in Paris was "The Guitar Lesson" (1934), which caused controversy due to its depiction of a sexually explicit lesbian scene featuring a young girl and her teacher.

His work was admired by writers and fellow painters, especially by André Breton and Pablo Picasso. His circle of friends in Paris included the novelists Pierre Jean Jouve, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Joseph Breitbach, Pierre Leyris, Henri Michaux, Michel Leiris and René Char, the photographer Man Ray, the playwright and actor Antonin Artaud, and the painters André Derain, Joan Miró and Alberto Giacometti (one of the most faithful of his friends). In 1948, another friend, Albert Camus, asked him to design the sets and costumes for his play "L'Etat de Siège" (The State of Siege, directed by Jean-Louis Barrault).
In 1940, Balthus fled with his wife to Savoy to a farm in Champrovent near Aix-les-Bains, where he began his work on two major paintings: "Landscape near Champrovent" (1942-1945) and "The Living Room" (1942). In 1942 he escaped Nazi France to Switzerland, first to Bern and in 1945 to Geneva, where he made friends with the publisher Albert Skira and the writer and member of the French Resistance André Malraux.

Balthus returned to France in 1946 and a year later he made a trip with André Masson to Southern France, meeting figures such as Picasso and Jacques Lacan, who eventually became a collector of Balthus' work. As international fame grew with exhibitions in the gallery of Pierre Matisse (1938) and the Museum of Modern Art (1956) in New York City, he cultivated the image of himself as an enigma. In 1964 he moved to Rome, where he presided (appointed by the French Minister of Culture André Malraux) over the Villa de Medici as director of the French Academy in Rome, and made friends with the filmmaker Federico Fellini and the painter Renato Guttuso.

Balthus has been the first living artist who had his artwork in the Louvre's collection (it came from Picasso's private collection when it was donated to that museum).

from Wikipédia