Balthus: A Biography

by Nicholas Fox Weber

The first full-scale biography of one of the most elusive and enigmatic painters of our time -- the self-proclaimed Count Balthus Klossowski de Rola -- whose brilliantly rendered, markedly sexualized portraits, especially of young girls, are among the most memorable images in contemporary art.

The story of Balthus's life has been shrouded by contradiction and hearsay, most of it his own invention; over the years he created for himself a persona of mystery, aristocracy, and glamour. Now, in Nicholas Fox Weber's superb biography, Balthus, the man and the artist, stands revealed as never before.

He was born in Paris in 1908 to Polish parents. At age twelve he first stepped into the spotlight with the publication of forty of his drawings illustrating a story about a cat by Rainer Maria Rilke, who was then Balthus's mother's lover and a crucial influence on the young boy. From that moment, Balthus has never been out of the public eye.

In 1934 his first exhibition, in Paris, stunned the art world. The seven canvases drew attention to his extraordinary technique -- a  mix of tradition and imagination informed by the work of Piero della Francesca, Courbet, and Joseph Reinhardt, but unique to the twenty-six-year-old artist -- and to their provocative content; one of the paintings, The Guitar Lesson , was so powerful in its sadomasochistic imagery that it was deemed necessary to remove it from public display.
Continuously since then, Balthus's work has provoked both great opprobrium and profound admiration -- as has the artist himself, whether collaborating with Antonin Artaud on his Theater of Cruelty, transforming the Villa Medici into the social center of Fellini's Rome in the 1950s, or competing for the artistic limelight with his friends Picasso and André Derain.

The artist's complexities are clarified and his genius understood in a book that derives its particular immediacy from Weber's long and intense conversations with Balthus -- who never previously consented to discuss his life and work with a biographer -- as well as his interviews with the painter's closest friends, members of his family, and many of the subjects of his controversial canvases.

Weber's critical and human grasp (he acutely analyzes the paintings in terms of both their aesthetic achievement and what they reveal of their maker's psyche), combined with his rich knowledge of Balthus's life and his insight into the ideas and forces that have helped to shape Balthus's work over the past seven decades, gives us a striking, illuminating portrait of one of the most admired and outrageous artists of our time.

Genres: Art, Biography

656 pages, Hardcover

First published October 12, 1999

About the author

Nicholas Fox Weber is a cultural historian and Executive Director of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. He has written extensively about both Josef and Anni Albers and curated many major exhibitions and retrospectives dedicated to their work. He is a graduate of Columbia College and Yale University and author of fourteen books including Patron Saints, The Art of Babar, The Drawings of Josef Albers, The Clarks of Cooperstown, Balthus, Le Corbusier: A Life, and The Bauhaus Group.

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A few years ago I read in review of some book, that I have forgotten, that one of many negative ideas Freud thrust into the world was, everyone thinks they can analyze anyone like a psychologist. Unfortunately, very few people are knowledgeable enough to do that, I think Weber in this book should have stepped more lightly when interpreting Balthus's paintings. Balthus resists any attempt to tie his paintings to his life. To him they are just paintings. In fact, Weber quotes Balthus, "The problem is that everyone sees eroticism. My pictures aren't erotic. The problem is psychoanalysis." One wonders how serious Balthus is with his statements, since it has been proven he makes things up. For instance, that he is a count.

The first time I saw a Balthus painting was at the Chicago Art Institute, although I don't remember which painting I saw. But it made me uncomfortable. I didn't think I was looking at child porn, as Mia Merrill has contended with the Metropolitan Museum of Art displaying Balthus's, Thérèse Dreaming. I felt uncomfortable because it felt like I had invaded a private moment. Isn't art supposed to make us feel uncomfortable?

Weber pushes the issue if Balthus is a pedophile. He interviews several of the models now older. None think the artist was inappropriate in his treatment of them, except not letting them move while posing.

When Balthus's parents broke up. (His mother was one of Rilke's lovers.) His older brother who became a Marque de Sade scholar went to live with Andre Guide, who according to Simon Levy was a pedophile. Weber doesn't mention this.

Besides, Weber's intent on analyzing, my other objection is his chapters focus on certain paintings and not on other aspects of Balthus's life.

[Andrea Ole · Rating 4 out of 5]

A detailed and thorough great biography of Balthus, whose attraction to adolescent girls and young women, becomes a subject in his paintings, but one he was reluctant to discuss and elaborate on in life. One begins to understand the strange power that Balthus paintings possess because he invested so much of his childhood and adolescent conflicts and passions in them throughout his long life (1908-2001). And understandably he was reluctant to discuss and elaborate on what we would call his hang-ups or neurotic obessessions that found expression in his alluring, yet disturbing paintings of adolescent girls and young woman who are presented in a seductive, enticing manner.

The sources for Balthus' strange and disturbing erotic fixations lie in his mother's affair with Rilke, a well-known poet, who for several years was not only his mother's passionate lover (after Balthus' parents had separated and lived apart), but also a father figure who loved and supported Balthus, a precocious and talented child. Rilke, for example, saw to it that Balthus published a book of illustrations for which he provided text about a cat that runs off from a boy when Balthus was 13. Balthus was honored and appreciated that Rilke bestowed his support and encouragement on him, yet he was uneasy as a young adolescent between 12 to 17 when he sensed his mother's affection had shifted from him to a new father figure and patron supporer.

[Crystal · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book to be strangely disappointing. Weber appears to have a very conflicted relationship with his subject. He often notes that friends of the artist were frustrated by the fact that Balthus had an uncanny ability to 'take people in.' For some reason, Weber seems to think he should be immune to this charm. But he isn't - and that manifests in the biography as an irritating tendency to second guess his subject in an incredibly petty fashion. Why weber simply did not admit that Balthus enjoyed fabricating his identity? It's clear the artist treated his biography as another outlet for his 'creativity'. I would have welcomed a keener exploration of this aspect of Balthus' personality. Instead, Weber goes over the same hackneyed ground: did Balthus like little girls? He said he didn't and no one has accused him otherwise. Besides, the point is - he liked to paint and, like Francis Bacon (whose paintings are disturbing in a different way), he like to shock. I, for one, appreciated the fact the artist refused to give in to Weber's literalism. But 800+ pages is a very long time to stick with that ill-matched pas de deux.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining and far-fetched due to the painter's tendency to re-write his own biography according to inner compulsions that the biographer doesn't fully accept.

[Gareth Schweitzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goddam this book is a slog… but at least it’s readable and the author really loves his subject. It’s a good introduction to the artist who is a conceited pseudo aristocrat and smells of butterscotch.

Fox Weber is very well read when it comes to books on Balthus and is able to show contradictions and untruths in other writers facts as well as Balthus’s own.

The book has a strange binding (untrimmed?) where the pages are unevenly cut and sometimes it’s a struggle to turn a page.

I find myself covering colour plates with a bookmark when reading it on a busy morning rush hour train, as the early pictures in particular, are disturbing.

The author sometimes spends too long extrapolating artistic intention and meaning from paintings and against Balthus’s advice regularly interprets paintings in relation to Balthus’s biography and artistic achievements.

The inclusion by the author of his attempted seduction by one of his interviewees (one of the 3 sisters) seems in bad taste and heavy handed point about female sexuality, regardless of how objective or transparent he’s trying to be.

It appears “Getting up” and Caravaggio’s “Amor Victorious “ are printed in reverse.

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great research and writing, but Balthus the man never emerges. In Stevens' and Swan's De Kooning, or Richardson's Picasso, the reader sees the artist socializing and comparing notes among friends and peers throughout life, which makes the books exciting. That doesn't happen here, probably because Balthus wants to remain a mystery. Weber's scholarship and enthusiasm for his subject are impressive, but the artist remains elusive.

[David Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Never harbored a deep appreciation for his art work (quite out of step with the times). And a man you could well love to hate.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the thorough analyses of this complicated, sometimes difficult but charming and brilliant artist and his work.

[Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is really annoying. I am beginning to wonder who is more annoying, the author or the subject.