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Balthus: Cats and Girls Hardcover – October 29, 2013

by Sabine Rewald (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 64 ratings
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An insightful new look at Balthus’s ongoing fascination with cats and girls, including his controversial paintings of young adolescents

Balthus’s lifelong curiosity with the ambiguities and dark side of childhood resulted in his best-known and most iconic works. In these pictures, Balthus (1908-2001) mingles intuition into his young sitters’ psyches with overt erotic desire and forbidding austerity, making them among the most powerful depictions of childhood and adolescence ever committed to canvas. Often included in these scenes are enigmatic cats, possible stand-ins for the artist himself.

Balthus: Cats and Girls is the first book devoted to this subject, focusing on the early decades of the artist’s career from the mid-1930s to the 1950s. Drawing on extensive knowledge of the artist’s life and work, as well as on interviews with Balthus and the models themselves, Sabine Rewald explores the origins and permutations of Balthus’s obsessions with adolescents and felines. She addresses the crucial influence of such key figures as poet Rainer Maria Rilke, his mother’s lover, who acted as Balthus’s surrogate father, but also includes the previously unknown voices of the girl models: their recollections and comments provide a unique perspective on some of the best known and most controversial paintings of the 20th century.





Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press


Exhibition Schedule:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
(09/24/13–01/12/14)

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Previous page
  1. Print length
    176 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Metropolitan Museum of Art
  4. Publication date
    October 29, 2013
  5. Dimensions
    9.2 x 0.75 x 10 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0300197012
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0300197013
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"[Sabine Rewald] is by far the greatest Balthus scholar ever . . ."—Jerry Saltz, New York Magazine

"The catalogue of Balthus: Cats and Girls is a beautiful piece of work, admirably levelheaded in its treatment of his involvement with his young models."—Jed Perl, The New Republic

About the Author

Sabine Rewaldis Jacques and Natasha Gelman Curator, department of Modern and Contemporary Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Metropolitan Museum of Art; First Edition (October 29, 2013)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 176 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0300197012
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0300197013
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.4 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.2 x 0.75 x 10 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 64 ratings

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Sabine Rewald

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
64 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Jack Green
5.0 out of 5 stars Great, great art book
Reviewed in the United States on June 12, 2015
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Really liked this book. I saw one of these girls' paintings at the Met and liked it. Then the Met had an exhibit focussing on Balthus and these paintings. The book is of very high quality; it was made by the Met, the plates of the paintings are excellent. I find the girls' paintings intriguing. They have a history of being questioned as not as exactly pornographic, they're all similar to the one on the cover, but as stretching the bounds of proprietary. The book has many paintings, not all of them are of the girls. There is also a biography of Balthus and his painting career going on throughout the book. There is an introduction to the book written by the curator of the Met exhibit that among other things gets into the controversial nature of the girls' paintings. An excellent, excellent book.
4 people found this helpful
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August Canaille
5.0 out of 5 stars Balthus painted what you can’t think.
Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2019
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High quality edition of Balthus’ most controversial work. Really good text to go along with it, explaining his life’s journey.

It’s a shame he got called a paedo and everything else, when he was just an artist who saw the beauty in awkward adolescent teens. Honestly, I don’t think there was a bad bone in his body.

In death we salute you, Balthus, here and tomorrow and to the grave.
3 people found this helpful
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Kenneth Hughes
4.0 out of 5 stars Balthus and his cats and his girls, and his girls' cats and his cats' girls et catera . . .
Reviewed in the United States on October 31, 2013
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This is the catalogue that accompanies the exhibition of Balthus paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from September 2013 to January 2014. The exhibition itself was called "Balthus: Cats and Girls--Paintings and Provocations." Sabine Rewald, the Gelman Curator for Modern Art at the museum and the foremost authority on Balthus, curated the exhibition and is the sole author of the catalogue. She explains that the subtitle was added as an afterthought "in acknowledgment that [Balthus's] paintings of adolescents might offend some viewers" (vii). In light of the remarks posted here on October 26 ("Disgusted"), that seems not to have been a superfluous concern. However, Ian Buruma has objected to the subtitle on the grounds that "there is no evidence that Balthus painted adolescent girls, let alone cats, as provocations" ("The New York Review of Books," November 7, 2013, p. 84). That is not strictly true, as the aged painter acknowledged in retrospect. Perhaps we shall simply have to leave it with Justice Stewart's conclusion that we know provocation when we see it and agree that everyone has a right to be offended by provocation--but no one has a right to ban it in order to protect his own sensibilities.

In any case, this is the second Balthus exhibition catalogue that Dr. Rewald has written for the MMA (and in fact her third book on the artist). The first exhibition, in 1984, was broader in scope and included more of Balthus's landscapes, cityscapes and still lifes. In this show, she has focussed more on his early career--roughly from the mid-thirties to the fifties--and these are the years in which Balthus's obsession with his girl-and-cat paintings is especially prominent, when it becomes apparent that the subject of a girl poised between childhood and puberty is to become what the author calls his artistic "leitmotif" (8). As to the two poles of these paintings, the girl and the cat, there is the obvious French and English common denominator in the vulgar associations surrounding "chatte," "pussy," etc., and Dr. Rewald calls appropriate attention to the historical connection between felines and feminine sexuality. Her very well illustrated forty-five page essay preceding the catalogue traces this theme chronologically through Balthus's oeuvre, from the precocious eleven-year-old's sketched chronicle of a found, adopted, and then lost stray cat to the last of his several adolescent models. Some of these pictures are frankly and exuberantly erotic, but there seems to be nothing prurient about even those few that pose prepubescent girls in full frontal exposure, where they radiate a "wholesome sensuality" (140). But for the most part, the girls are just lounging around with blouses and skirts askew, either unselfconsciously exposing a bit of panty-clad crotch here or a bared nipple there or, conversely, quite self-consciously engaging the viewer.

The catalogue extends to almost 100 pages and presents forty-one full-page reproductions (including several that were not in the exhibition), a few blown-up details, and a generous number of supportive illustrations (the jacket text says there are 171, some of which are black-and-white photographs); the paper is of a semi-lustrous kind that seems to capture colors quite faithfully. Each entry is commented on by Dr. Rewald, and inevitably there is some repetition of what she has already written in the introductory essay. I found her comments sometimes less challenging than I would have liked, in being more generous in description than in analysis--i.e., viewers do not really need to be told that the subject is wearing a red sweater and blue dress and is sitting on a green sofa illuminated by light from the left. This we can see for ourselves; what we may miss is meatier and more penetrating discussion, comments on things like composition and structure, the contrast between body and background, or between the flexibility of the nubile anatomy and the rigidity of the furniture supporting it, matters of facture and technique, etc. On the other hand, this catalogue is quite special in that it is written in the first person, and only Sabine Rewald could have done that. When she writes something like "I first fell under the spell of Balthus . . ." (17), it is neither obtrusive nor self-aggrandizing; it simply reflects the years-long personal engagement she has had with the artist, his family, his friends, and his models, many of whom she has sought out and interviewed, and it makes her narrative of Balthus's career a document of irreplaceable first-hand authenticity. The volume concludes with a detailed chronology of Balthus's life, a selected bibliography and list of one-man exhibitions, and a comprehensive index. His life was very long, and his art very wide, and it is to Sabine Rewald's great credit that she has succeeded in concentrating the essence of his oeuvre into a manageable compass. There will be more Balthus exhibitions and books, but no doubt none more authoritative than this. I think Dr. Rewald could well have been more demanding of her readers, but even so this is a wonderful catalogue and an indispensable addition to the literature on this amazingly eccentric and truly unique painter.
61 people found this helpful
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Scott Burgess
5.0 out of 5 stars Nice Balthus Book
Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2018
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Beautiful book with authoritative text. Great for fans of Balthus, Cats, or Girls. Actually maybe for fans of Balthus or interesting European painters of the 20th century. Could be a little strange if you buy this book for the cats or the girls.
2 people found this helpful
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Laura Dilworth
5.0 out of 5 stars Quick delivery
Reviewed in the United States on December 31, 2019
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Beautiful paintings
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D. Elayne Warren
5.0 out of 5 stars but this book is pretty good consolation
Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2015
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I was sorry I couldn't make it to town to see the show, but this book is pretty good consolation.
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ronald Yrabedra
5.0 out of 5 stars Balthus' girls and cats
Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2013
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A semi-catalogue of the Balthus show at the Metropolitan Museum of art explores his favorite thems....lovely reproductions of youthful girls and energetic cats.
2 people found this helpful
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Carlos Mario Aguirre Velásquez
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2016
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this book had plenty my expectations with all details
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Top reviews from other countries

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Cliente Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars Ótimo livro
Reviewed in Brazil on July 17, 2021
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Livro de conteúdo excelente.
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Jose
5.0 out of 5 stars Buen libro y edición
Reviewed in Spain on April 13, 2019
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Buena edición y libro sobre la obra de Balthus actualmente dentro de una exposición en el Museo Thyssen de Madrid.
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Dr. C. D. Connaughton
5.0 out of 5 stars Good book so far.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 11, 2019
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The book is for perusing and reading.
There is much supporting text which looks interesting but I have not read yet. The pictures of paintings are good, in my opinion.
One person found this helpful
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ぐん
5.0 out of 5 stars 予定より早く美品が届きました。
Reviewed in Japan on November 28, 2019
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予定より１日早くエアメイルで着きました。英国のローヤルメイルで送付の旨、ご担当からのご連絡でしたが、非常に感じがよかったです。品物も美品で大変満足しています。
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WEI HOU
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on July 20, 2015
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good
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