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Artist or Maker: 1908-2001
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Dimensions: 150.8 by 82.6cm.
59 3/8 by 32 1/2 in.
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Provenance: PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE AMERICAN COLLECTOR
Galerie Henriette Gomès, Paris (acquired from the artist)
André Gomès, Paris
Galerie Hopkins-Thomas, Paris
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Exhibited: Paris, Galerie Henriette Gomès, Balthus, 1956 (exhibition organised on the premises of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts)
Turin, Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna, Balthus, 1958, no. 1 (titled Nu rouge)
Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Balthus, 1966, no. 17
Knokke-le-Zoute, Municipal Casino, Balthus, 1966, no. 17
London, Tate Gallery, Balthus, 1968, no. 33
Marseille, Musée Cantini, Balthus, 1973, no. 20
Paris, Galerie Henriette Gomès, Balthus, 1983-84
Ornans, Musée Maison Natale Gustave Courbet, Balthus dans la maison de Courbet, 1992, no. 28
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Literature: Jean Leymaire, Balthus¸ Geneva, 1982, p. 141
Stanislas Rola de Klossowski, Balthus: Paintings, London and New York, 1983, pl. 37, illustrated
Paul Eluard, Balthus (exhibition catalogue), Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris, 1983, p. 359, no. 117, illustrated
Jean Leymaire, Balthus, Geneva, 1990, p. 145
Xiaosheng Xing, Balthus, Shanghai, 1995, pl. 26, illustrated
Claude Roy, Balthus, Paris, 1996, p. 157, illustrated
Stanislas Rola de Klossowski, Balthus, London, 1996, p. 156, no. 51, catalogued; pl. 51, illustrated
Virgine Monnier and Jean Clair, Balthus, Catalogue Raisonné of the Complete Works, Paris, 1999, p. 159, no. P.208, illustrated
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Notes: Very often the adolescent children in the paintings of Balthus seem to be day dreaming, lost in their own world. In Nu aux bras levés, on the other hand, the naked young girl appears to be waking from a deep sleep as she stretches her arms above her head, enjoying the moment of regaining consciousness and savouring her privacy. It was painted in 1951, probably in the studio on the Cour de Rohan in Paris shortly after a group of paintings centering on La Semaine de quatre jeudis, 1949, and before the monumental La Chambre of 1951-54. In both paintings, there were supporting players, a girl looking out of the window in the former and an evil gnome-like figure in the latter. A cat surveys the human scene in both canvases. In the present work, however, Balthus narrowed his focus to a corner of a room where the nude figure half sits on a bed. A chair and drapery of a sombre, reddish hue occupy the foreground.
Balthus painted only six works in 1951 and had been working on one of these since 1949 (Jeune fille à sa toilette, Monnier and Clair, no. P.207). From his adolescence, when he studied Old Masters in the Louvre rather than attend art school and when he painted copies of Piero della Francesca and Masaccio, Balthus endeavoured to enrich rather than to destroy the great tradition of western art. As Jean Clair has observed, "The very matter of the paintings surprises one with its mural quality. It long perpetuated the traditional craft of oil, dominated by dark colours, regulated by the scale of earthen hues lit up with a few dashes of blue, green, or deep red, and neglecting the juxtaposition of pure tones inherent to the impressionist palette. But it gradually gained in luminosity in the fifties and assumed an admirable transparency in the handling of the glaze" (Monnier and Claire, op. cit., p. 8).
