Background
Setsuko was born, Setsuko Ideta, in Tokyo in 1943.
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Setsuko Klossowski de Rola
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She graduated from Tokyo Morimura Gakuen High School in 1961 and entered the department of French language at Sophia University in Tokyo.
Career
She has been in charge of the Villa Medici in Rome, has exhibited her work internationally, and is also a writer She became United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization"s Artist Foreign Peace in 2005. She is the widow of the French painter, Balthus, and is honorary president of the Balthus Foundation.
As a university student, she met the painter Balthus who was visiting Japan for the first time in 1962.
Setsuko assisted Balthus, acting as the headmistress of Villa Medici, where he presided as director of the French Academy in Rome. In 1968, she gave birth to a son, Fumio, who died aged two years and six months.
In 1973, a daughter, Harumi, was born. In 1977, Setsuko and Balthus left the French Academy and moved to Le Grand Chalet in Rossinière, Switzerland.
Balthus died in 2001.
Setsuko made rapid progress as a painter. Her exhibitions were held at: Pierre Matisse Art Gallery in New York in 1984 Alice Pauli in Lausanne in 1986 The Lefevre Gallery in London in 1989 Takanawa Prince Hotel in 1989 The Lefevre Gallery in London in 1992 Hotels Salon de Rothschild in 1993 In 1988 her collection entitled Setsuko was published by Librairie Seguier. In 1991, she painted a wine label for the prestigious Bordeaux Mouton Rothschild.
In 1994, upon request by Limited Edition of New York, she produced illustrations for a limited grand edition of Koyahijiri (Saint of Mountain Koya, a work by Kyōka Izumi).
The illustrations were exhibited in New York, Paris and Rome. At Sotheby"s in Zurich in 1999, a Balthus and Setsuko Klossowski de Rola exhibition was held entitled Sotheby"s Kingdom of the Cats.
In the same year, an exhibition entitled Setsuko & Harumi was held at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva. In 2002, when the Balthus Foundation was established, Setsuko was designated as its honorary president, and she was also Cultural Patron of the 2002 Venice Congress the same year.
In 2005, she became United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization"s Artist Foreign Peace.
In 2005 and 2006, Mainichi Newspaper and Asahi Shimbun sponsored her exhibition entitled Setsuko-no-kurashi Wa-no-kokoro (Spirit of Japan, Setsuko"s Life) in Kumamoto, Yokohama and Tokyo. In 2010, she exhibited at Galerie Yoshii in Paris in January, and in Tokyo in February. She appeared as a guest in an Asahi television talk show Tetsuko"s Room.
Other television appearances include Tanoshii Engei (Enjoy Gardening) by Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai"s Education Channel and Grand Chalet by Swiss television
