Description

"From time to time, amidst all the trials and errors, it happens: I recognize what I was looking for. All of a sudden the vision that preexisted incarnates itself, more or less intuitively and more or less precisely. The dream and the reality are superimposed and made one." --Balthus

Published to document Gagosian Gallery's 2015 Balthus exhibition in Paris, this striking new book depicts the beautiful paintings, drawings, and photographs that were part of that career-spanning exhibition, the first of Balthus's work in Paris since the 1983-84 retrospective at the Centre Georges Pompidou. Vibrant color reproductions of the artist's interior portraits, street scenes, and landscapes, along with striking installation shots, present the self-taught classicism that Balthus cultivated as a framework for his more enigmatic artistic investigations. A conversation between Olivier Zahm and Setsuko Klossowska de Rola completes the catalogue, providing an insightful look into the world of this reclusive painter of charged and disquieting narrative scenes.