Harumi Klossowska de Rola

Harumi Klossowska de Rola is a Swiss-based contemporary artist and designer. She was born in 1973, in Geneva, as the daughter of Balthasar Klossowski de Rola, known as Balthus, a Polish-French modern artist, and Setsuko Klossowska de Rola, a Japanese painter.

Biography As a child, Harumi made small animal sculptures from the stones she collected in the gardens of Villa Medici. Every Sunday, her mother gave her lessons in calligraphy, which later helped her with drawing. As a teenager, she started making jewelry by adding semi-precious stones to handmade silk Chinese buttons from her mother's collection. In her early twenties, she started as an intern to John Galliano and his team and quickly rose to the role of a PR assistant. Soon after that, she started designing fine jewelry inspired by Italian Pre–Renaissance art. She often cites Antoinette de Watteville, her father's first wife and mother of her two half-brothers, and her sister-in-law Lulu de la Falaise as great influences in her jewelry design.

She designed jewelry for Boucheron and Chopard before expanding her practice into sculpture and unique decorative objects. She draws inspiration from various sources including nature (wild animals, plants, and trees), Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythology, African art, and Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi.

Exhibitions Her notable solo shows include Retour d'Expedition, Van Cleef & Arpels's L'Ecole des Arts Joailliers in 2017, at Galerie Yves Gastou, Paris, in 2023, and Hayawan at Robilant+Voena New York gallery in 2023, which was her first solo show in the United States. In February and March 2025, Harumi had a solo exhibition at Acquavella Galleries in Palm Beach.