Balthus

Balthus (Count Balthasar Klossowski de Rola) , 1908-2001, Polish-French painter, b. Paris. Balthus is widely regarded as one of the most important figurative painters of the modern era. He began painting as a young man and had his first one-man show in 1934. Balthus soon developed a distinctive style, producing poetic, calm, yet erotically charged and oddly disorienting paintings. Many of them are extremely large with thickly built-up surfaces and feature dreamy, sensual, and enigmatically posed adolescent girls. His other typical subjects are brooding landscapes and distinctive portraits. Balthus was also known for his stage designs.

Bibliography: See his memoirs, Vanished Splendors (2002).

Balthus ( Balthazar Klossowski de Rola) (1908–2001). French painter (and occasional stage designer), born in Paris of cultured Polish parents, both of whom painted. He had no formal training but was encouraged by the family friends Derain (of whom Balthus painted a memorable portrait(1936, MoMA, New York)) and Bonnard. His work was dominated by erotic imagery, his favourite theme being the adolescent girl awakening to sexual consciousness; characteristically these girls are shown languidly sprawled or kneeling awkwardly over books in claustrophobic interiors that have a suggestion of Surrealist oddness (The Living Room, 1941–3, Minneapolis Inst. of Arts). From 1961 to 1977 he was director of the French Academy in Rome, but otherwise he spent most of his life living in seclusion in France or Switzerland. He worked slowly and his output was small, but his highly distinctive images made him internationally famous, indeed something of a cult figure. His work was generally warmly received by critics as well as the public (although some have accused him of having a Lolita complex) and he is widely regarded as one of the 20th century's leading upholders of the great tradition of figure painting.