Balthus

Known for: figurative painting; controversial depictions of adolescent subjects

Balthus — born Balthasar Klossowski de Rola to a Polish family of artists and intellectuals — produced figurative paintings of extreme formal control in which adolescent girls are depicted in states of apparent sexual reverie, generating controversies that have intensified rather than abated since his death. He directed the French Academy in Rome from 1961 to 1977. He was friends with Rilke — who wrote the preface to his father's book — and with Picasso, who described Balthus as the greatest living painter.