Pierre Klossowski

Born on 9 August 1905 in Paris, France, Pierre Klossowski was the eldest son of the art‑historian Erich Klossowski and the painter Baladine Klossowska (née Elisabeth Dorothea Spiro). His father, a German‑educated scholar, claimed descent from the Polish petty nobility (the Rola coat of arms), while his mother hailed from Breslau, Prussia (now Wrocław, Poland). Growing up in a highly cultured household, Pierre was immersed in the avant‑garde atmosphere that surrounded his brother Balthus, later a celebrated painter, and he developed early ties with literary figures such as André Gide, for whom he worked as a secretary at the age of eighteen, contributing to the drafts of Les faux‑monnayeurs. These formative experiences situated Klossowski at the crossroads of literature, philosophy, and visual art, shaping a career that would span more than seven decades. His upbringing in a bilingual, trans‑national environment gave him a fluency in both French and German that later proved essential for his prolific work as a translator of seminal texts.