Sylvia Bataille(1908-1993)
- Actress
Sylvia Bataille was an acclaimed French actress, who in 1939 won Le
prix Suzanne-Bianchetti, given to France's most promising actress -
other winners include the great actresses Audrey Tatou, Isabelle
Adjani, Geneviève Bujold, Isabelle Huppert, Simone Signoret. Bataille
acted in Renoir's Crime of Monsieur Lange, and A Day in the Country.
Her first husband was the troubled, philosophical novelist Georges
Bataille (Ma mere, Story of the Eye - both filmed 2004). The
Batailles' daughter Laurence (1930-1986) became a psychiatrist and
acted in Renoir's movie French Cancan. Sylvia left Georges for Jacques
Lacan (1901-1981) an influential and controversial French
psychoanalyst. After Sylvia's early retirement from acting, she worked
closely with Lacan. Both Georges and Lacan were influenced by
surrealists, including Spanish painter Salvador Dali, inspiring Lacan
to devise a unique synthesis of psychiatry and Surrealism. With Lacan,
Sylvia also had a daughter, the philosopher Judith Miller (born 1941).
Sylvia eventually married Lacan (1953). Judith married the
philosopher/psychoanalyst Jacques-Alain Miller.
In the 1930's, Sylvia was a member of the great screenwriter Jacques
Prevert's (Children of Paradise, Port of Shadows) agit-prop theatre
company, Le groupe Octobre.
For 38 years Sylvia owned Gustave Corbet's still-controversial painting
The Origin of the World. After her death, the French government
received the painting to pay inheritance tax. Sylvia's sister Rose
Makles married painter André Masson, who made a surrealist companion
piece to The Origin of the World, which was attached to the Corbet
canvas. Masson was a major influence on American abstract
expressionists. Sylvia's other sister Simone Makles married the French
government minister Jean Piel, who wrote and edited with Sylvia's
ex-husband Georges Bataille.
prix Suzanne-Bianchetti, given to France's most promising actress -
other winners include the great actresses Audrey Tatou, Isabelle
Adjani, Geneviève Bujold, Isabelle Huppert, Simone Signoret. Bataille
acted in Renoir's Crime of Monsieur Lange, and A Day in the Country.
Her first husband was the troubled, philosophical novelist Georges
Bataille (Ma mere, Story of the Eye - both filmed 2004). The
Batailles' daughter Laurence (1930-1986) became a psychiatrist and
acted in Renoir's movie French Cancan. Sylvia left Georges for Jacques
Lacan (1901-1981) an influential and controversial French
psychoanalyst. After Sylvia's early retirement from acting, she worked
closely with Lacan. Both Georges and Lacan were influenced by
surrealists, including Spanish painter Salvador Dali, inspiring Lacan
to devise a unique synthesis of psychiatry and Surrealism. With Lacan,
Sylvia also had a daughter, the philosopher Judith Miller (born 1941).
Sylvia eventually married Lacan (1953). Judith married the
philosopher/psychoanalyst Jacques-Alain Miller.
In the 1930's, Sylvia was a member of the great screenwriter Jacques
Prevert's (Children of Paradise, Port of Shadows) agit-prop theatre
company, Le groupe Octobre.
For 38 years Sylvia owned Gustave Corbet's still-controversial painting
The Origin of the World. After her death, the French government
received the painting to pay inheritance tax. Sylvia's sister Rose
Makles married painter André Masson, who made a surrealist companion
piece to The Origin of the World, which was attached to the Corbet
canvas. Masson was a major influence on American abstract
expressionists. Sylvia's other sister Simone Makles married the French
government minister Jean Piel, who wrote and edited with Sylvia's
ex-husband Georges Bataille.