Balthus

Description

"Balthus's most important works were created between 1932 and 1960, when he lived in Paris and in Chateau de Chassy; a dilapidated manor in Burgundy. This period started with a scandal: the large-format pictures shown at his first solo exhibition in the Paris Galerie Pierre in 1934 have seemingly familiar motifs - young women standing at windows, receiving music instruction or grooming themselves. But they are charged with an aggressive eroticism that shocked the viewers - and were meant to do so. In the following decades Balthus painted portraits of contemporaries, street scenes and landscapes, and time and again his favorite motif: young girls on the threshold of puberty, that erotic state of uncertainty between childhood and womanhood. Many of these works undisputedly belong to the catalogue of twentieth-century masterpieces." "This volume appears on the occasion of the very first Balthus exhibition in Germany organized by the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, presenting 76 paintings and drawings from Balthus's most creative years."--Jacket.

Description

51 Color Plates, 151 black and white illustrations, includes a chronology, a list of exhibitions, and a bibliography. The catalogue, written by Sabine Rewald, a specialist in the artist's work, is a major contribution to the study of Balthus. The author presents new biographical information about this reclusive artist, and her astute assessment of the works that influenced hime gives the reader a new sense of the richness and amibuity of Balthus's world. This critical study of the life and work of the French artist Balthus serves as the catalogue of an exhibition held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Musee National d'Art Moderne, Paris.

Subjects

Other Editions

• BalthusMetropolitan Museum of Art1984-01-01
• BalthusHardcoverSchirmer/Mosel2007-09-20