This is 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 brilliant, markedly sexualized portraits, especially of young girls, are among the most memorable images in contemporary art.

Balthus's complexities are clarified and his genius understood in this book that derives its immediacy from Nicholas Fox Weber's long and intense conversations with Balthus himself-who never previously consented to discuss his life and work with a biographer-as well as Weber's interviews with the artist's closest associates. This biography was first published by Knopf in 1999 and is now available for the first time from Dalkey Archive Press.