Balthazar Kaplan

Biography :

In Paris, with Barthélémy Schwartz, he founded the review Dorénavant (1986-1989), an avant-garde review of comics, which defends the idea that comics should not be limited to one type of graphics or to a story in pictures: it is a writing that plays on the compartmentalization of a space to create a game between local images and global image. Thus in the anthology of comic strips that they offer, we also find painters like Klee or Kandinsky.

Between 1988 and 2006, Balthazar Kaplan opted for novelistic writing (under the name of Guillaume Marbot: La Ville, Michalon, 1998; Le Chimiste, Flammarion, 2004). He enters the ENS of Fontenay-St Cloud, passes the aggregation of modern letters then leaves abroad (United States, Japan). Back in France in 1997, he settled in Brittany and in 2004, in Rennes.

In 2006, a new generation of comic book authors and publishers paid homage to the magazine Dorénavant, which encouraged Balthazar Kaplan to resume his reflection and his creation. He writes articles for the Du9 site, publishes an essay on the author of Little Nemo: Winsor McCay (Le Rêveur absolu, Ab Irato, 2014). For his creations, he first works in oil pastels then chooses from 2016 oil paint. The same year, for the thirtieth anniversary of the review, the Du9 site published the complete Dorénavant.

He also resumed novel writing, publishing, under the name of Balthazar Kaplan, the thriller Polar Night, Ab Irato, 2021

June 2018, first exhibition at the Lavoir Ateliers Réunis, in Rennes.

December 2018, two paintings (Le Tunnel, La Chose) reproduced in the magazine L'Echaudée, n°8, Ab Irato editions (Paris)

January 2019, exhibition in the off of the Angoulême comic book festival.

September 2019, the painting Le Secret exhibited at Costermans, place du grand Sablon in Brussels

November 2019: exhibition of 10 paintings at the Young International Artfair, rue de Rivoli, in Paris

December 2019, the canvas Tribute to Breccia, reproduced in the magazine L'Echaudée, n°9, Ab Irato editions (Paris)

May 2021: Elan d'Art in Montpellier (but postponed)

October 2021: “Histoires” exhibition (14 paintings) at the Beauté du Matin Calme gallery, Paris 15th.

November 2021: sale of two paintings to the Contemporary Art Fund of the city of Rennes.

March 2022: Art in Normandy, Honfleur. 3 exposed canvases