Balthus (b. 1908) was born in Paris, France to Polish parents, who were both artists and supported his aspirations of following in their footsteps. Unfortunately, his adolescence occurred during a period of great social upheaval, causing his parents to move him to Berlin at the advent of WWI. They soon divorced, and Balthus was forced to split his time between Switzerland and Germany, allowing him to immerse himself in two very different cultures. Once an adult, he moved back to Paris to pursue artistic education. Despite the burgeoning avant-garde movement at the time, he was compelled to embrace classical technique, leading him to study Old Master painting at the Louvre before going to Rome to study frescoes at the Quattrocento. In the beginning of his career he took portrait commissions and designed sets, but after his first solo show, he began to create large scale paintings of interiors and landscapes, often populated with young girls and teenagers in sexually revealing poses. He favored a muted palette which lent his works an energy of eeriness and eroticism. Throughout the years he faced many controversies surrounding his depictions of young girls, even being accused of pedophilia, but prevailed in the art world regardless. Reclusive and secretive, Balthus believes in the art of privacy and thinks his personal life should not be relevant to the works he creates. Despite pushback, he remains lauded, and by the end of his illustrious career he had the opportunity of showing the the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, the French Academy in Rome, and the Georges Pompidou Foundation in Paris.