The following bibliography, while not complete, gives the sources I consider of the greatest significance concerning Balthus’s life and work. More comprehensive lists of articles appear in the various exhibition catalogs.
Balthus. Lausanne: Musée des Beaux-Arts, 1993.
Balthus. London: The Tate Gallery, 1968.
Balthus. Madrid: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 1996.
Balthus. Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1983.
Balthus. Venezia: Edizioni “La Biennale di Venezia,” 1980.
Balthus dans La Maison de Courbet. Ornans: Musée Gustave Courbet, 1992.
Balthus: Zeichnungen. Bern: Kunstmuseum Bern, 1994.
Carandente, Giovanni. Balthus: Drawings and Watercolors. Translated by James Mitchell. London: Thames and Hudson, 1983.
Klossowski de Rola, Stanislas. Balthus. London: Thames and Hudson, 1983.
Leymarie, Jean. Balthus. Geneva: Skira, 1978.
Omaggio a Balthus. Rome: Accadèmia Valentino, 1996.
Rewald, Sabine. Balthus. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1984.
Roy, Claude. Balthus. Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1996.
Soby, James Thrall. Balthus. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1956.
Artaud, Antonin. “Balthus à la Galerie Pierre.” La Nouvelle Revue Française, no. 248 (May 1934), pp. 899–900.
———. “La Jeune Peinture française et la tradition.” El Nacional, June 17, 1936.
Bernier, Georges. “Balthus.” L’Oeil, no. 15 (March 1956), pp. 27–33.
Bonnefoy, Yves. “L’Invention de Balthus.” L’Improbable: Mercure de France, 1959, pp. 49–74.
Bowie, David. “The Last Legendary Painter.” Modern Painters, Autumn 1994, pp. 14–33.
Chalais, François. “Balthus parle.” Le Figaro, March 23, 1989.
Clark, Kenneth. “A Modern Master.” The New York Review of Books, June 12, 1980.
Covington, Richard. “Balthus at Home.” Art & Antiques, November 1994, pp. 70–77.
Dagen, Philippe. “Balthus: Still Striving to Find an Inner Vision.” Guardian Weekly, August 25, 1991. First published in French in Le Monde, August 4–5, 1991.
Frankfurter, Alfred M. “The Important Premiere of Balthus: Nouveau Sachlichkeit à la Celine.” The Art News, no. 36 (April 2, 1938).
Gendel, Milton. “H.M. the King of Cats, a Footnote.” ARTnews 61, no. 2 (April 1962).
Hess, Thomas B. “Balthus: Seen and Scene.” New York, November 21, 1977.
Jouve, Pierre Jean. “Balthus.” La Nef, September 1944.
———. “Le Tableau.” Proses: Mercure de France, 1960, pp. 45–49.
———. “Les Cenci d’Antonin Artaud.” La Nouvelle Revue Française, no. 261 (June 1935), pp. 910–15.
Klossowski, Pierre. “Balthus: Beyond Realism.” ARTnews 55, no. 8 (December 1956), pp. 26–31.
Lhote, André. “Gromaire à la Galerie Pierre.” La Nouvelle Revue Française, no. 249 (June 1, 1934), pp. 1045–1046.
Lord, James. “Balthus: The Strange Case of the Count de Rola.” The New Criterion 2, no. 4 (December 1983), pp. 9–25.
Peppiatt, Michael. “Balthus: Dreams, Enigmas, and Nymphets.” Connoisseur, November 1983.
Perl, Jed. “Balthus.” ARTS 55, no. 5 (January 1978).
———. “Balthus in New York.” The New Criterion, May 1984, pp. 7–19.
Rilke, Rainer Maria. “Lettres à un jeune peintre.” Fontaine, 1945, no. 44.
Russell, John. “Master of the Nubile Adolescent.” Art in America 55 (November 1967).
Watt, Alexander. “Balthus.” Occident, no. 2 (January 1948).
Camus, Albert. “Balthus.” Catalog essay for exhibition at the Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, 1949.
Colle Lorant, Sylvia. “Balthus, décorateur de théâtre.” In Balthus. Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1983.
Connolly, Cyril. “Balthus.” Catalog for exhibition at the Lefevre Gallery, London, 1952.
Fellini, Federico. Preface to Balthus, translated by Luigi Barzini. New York: Pierre Matisse Gallery, 1977.
Fernier, Jean-Jacques. “Balthus.” In Balthus. Ornans: Musée Courbet, 1992.
Perl, Jed. “Balthus: Artist and Model.” In Paris Without End. San Francisco: Northpoint Press, 1988.
Rewald, John. “Thoughts on Drawings by Balthus.” Catalog essay for Drawings by Balthus at E. V. Thaw, New York, 1963.
Rilke, Rainer Maria. Preface to Mitsou. Zürich and Leipzig: Rotapfel Berlag Erlenbach, 1921.
Salis, Jean Rodolphe von. “Une Amitié.” In Balthus. Lausanne: Musée des Beaux Arts, 1993.
Schwartz, Sanford. “Heathcliff without Cathy.” In Artists and Writers, New York: Yarrow Press, 1990.
Soby, James Thrall. “Balthus.” Catalog essay for exhibition at the Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, 1938.
———. “Balthus and Giacometti [c. 1972].” Unpublished memoirs. Library of The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Artaud, Antonin. Oeuvres Complètes. Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1964–79.
Freedman, Ralph. Life of a Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1996.
Hobhouse, Janet. The Bride Stripped Bare. London: Jonathan Cape, 1988.
Leppmann, Wolfgang. Rilke: A Life. Translated by Russell M. Stockman. New York: Fromm International Publishing, 1984.
Loeb, Pierre. Voyages à Travers la Peinture. Paris: Borda, 1945.
Prater, Donald. A Ringing Glass: The Life of Rainer Maria Rilke. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Rilke, Rainer Maria. Briefe an Nanny Wunderly-Volkart. Leipzig: Insel Verlag, 1977.
———. Briefe an Schweizer Freunde. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1990.
———. Letters to Merline, 1919–1921. Translated by Jesse Browner. New York: Paragon House, 1989.
Rilke, Rainer Maria, and André Gide. Correspondance, 1909–1926. Edited by Renée Lang. Paris: Correa, 1952.
Rilke, Rainer Maria, and Merline. Rainer Maria Rilke et Merline: Correspondance. Edited by Dieter Bassermann. Zurich: Insel Verlag, 1954.
Schnack, Ingeborg. Rainer Maria Rilke: Chronik Seines Lebens und Seines Werkes, Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1975.
Salis, J. R. von. Rainer Maria Rilke: The Years in Switzerland. London: The Hogarth Press, 1964.