(b Paris, 9 Aug 1905). French draughtsman, sculptor and writer. He was the son of the painter and art historian Erich Klossowski (1875–1949) and of Elizabeth Spiro (1886–1969), who painted under the name Baladine. Klossowski’s brother was BALTHUS. The family went to Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland) at the outbreak of World War I, but in early 1917 Baladine took the brothers to Geneva. There, in 1919, she met Rainer Maria Rilke, who assumed a guiding role for all of them. In Paris, Pierre Klossowski was associated with the Surrealists, forming particularly close friendships with the writer Georges Bataille and with André Masson. However, theology was a strong influence on Klossowski, and he began to study for the priesthood during the Nazi Occupation of Paris (1940–44). In his writings he mixed theological references with eroticism, and as a result he was for a long time considered a scandalous writer. Klossowski exhibited drawings, the earliest of which date from 1952–3, for the first time in 1956. He subsequently increased their format from c. 1.0*0.72 m to twice this size and began to use coloured pencils. The use of an almost childlike technique in compositions suggestive of pre-war cartoon strips and similar to the work of his brother, and the depiction of erotic subjects (especially his wife Denise as the character ‘Roberte’), are characteristic of his work as a whole. Among his best-known drawings are his illustrations for his second novel Roberte, ce soir (Paris, 1954). Klossowski’s sculpture for a long time remained relatively unknown, despite regular exhibitions from 1968 and the support of Michel Leiris, Michel Foucault and other influential critics. It became more widely appreciated during the Post-modernist era of the 1980s.

• Klossowski, Pierre
  • Balthus