Balthus

Balthus (Count Balthasar Klossowski de Rola)bôlˈthəs, bălˈ–, 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.

See his memoirs (2002); biography by N. F. Weber (1999).

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