Acquavella Galleries, a gallery known for its blue-chip secondary market dealings, is taking exclusive US representation of Harumi Klossowska de Rola, a Swiss sculptor whose practice sits between fine art and design. She is the daughter of Balthus, one of the last century’s most enigmatic painters, and the Japanese ceramicist Setsuko Klossowska de Rola.
Harumi’s animals—bronze owls, alabaster doves, life-size polar bears and stags—are cast in small editions and then obsessively reworked by hand, her patinas as carefully considered as their forms. “She works diligently on each piece after casting, so that when you see them in person they feel immediately timeless,” Alexander Acquavella said.
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Prices start under $100,000 for smaller works and climb past half a million for monumental bronzes, a range that has already found traction with both new collectors and major players.
The match between artist and gallery is not as unlikely as it might first seem. Acquavella became familiar with Klossowska de Rola’s work at the Palm Beach home of Peter Brant, a longtime supporter. Acquavella said Harumi’s practice exists within an art-and-design continuum that also includes figures like Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne, whose work has shown appeal among collectors in multiple industries.
Harumi Klossowska de Rola, Nanuk (2024) Bronze, Edition 2/3 plus 1 AP
Fonderie de Coubertin Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse, France
Photo Adrien Dira
“We’ve obviously had sculpture shows before,” he said of his gallery’s program, “but not an artist that falls between sculpture and design. We were really attracted to the elegance she accomplishes—it’s not an easy thing to pull off.”
The artist herself describes her work as a dialogue with myth and nature, rooted in her upbringing in the Swiss Alps. Her influences reach from Ancient Egypt to Japanese Shintoism, filtered through the wabi-sabi aesthetic. She collaborates with artisans at the Fonderie de Coubertin outside Paris, layering metals with age and gold leaf to achieve surfaces that appear both ancient and alive.
Her first show with Acquavella opened earlier this year in Palm Beach and was accompanied by a Rizzoli book. This fall, new works will appear at the gallery’s booth at Art Basel Paris, followed by a major solo exhibition across both floors of Acquavella’s New York space in 2026.
For a gallery better known for Giacometti and Cézanne, the move is more than a nod to the market’s appetite for crossover objects. It suggests that even institutions built on history are looking for artists who complicate collecting categories. “Her sculptures have a quality that defies easy categorization,” Acquavella said. “That’s what makes them special.”