The Last Muse

The late French artist Balthus painted young girls, masterfully but in a way that felt, to some, a little too suggestive. Those critics might take a look at the Polaroids he made of Anna Wahli—his muse before he died in 2001—which are being exhibited for the first time at Gagosian Gallery in New York. These touching informal studies seem steeped not in exploitation but in memory of a girl who gave an aging painter life in his last years.

“BALTHUS: The Last Studies” is on view through December 21, 2013, at Gagosian Gallery, 976 Madison Avenue in New York.