Balthasar Klossowski de Rola (1908-2001), known simply as Balthus, developed a repertoire of controversial and erotic subject matter unique in art history. By combining elements of the actual world with the aesthetics of past artists such as Poussin and Piero della Francesca, Balthus produced art that was filled with paradox, creating haunted worlds that are provocative and poetic.

Working in Paris throughout the 1930s, Balthus achieved a high level of success through exhibitions at the Pierre Matisse Gallery. In 1942, he fled Nazi France and went to Switzerland, where he became a friend of the publisher Albert Skira as well as the writer and member of the French Resistance André Malraux. He returned to France in 1946 and eventually traveled with André Masson to Southern France, meeting figures such as Picasso and Jacques Lacan, who would eventually become a collector of his work.

In 1961, Balthus began his 18-year tenure as the director of the Académie Française at the Villa Medici. While in Rome, Balthus embarked on a campaign to restore the Villa Medici in the Renaissance tradition, placing sculpture in the garden and building façade, and restoring the frescoes. He lived out his final decades in Switzerland with his wife, the artist Setsuko Ideta.