Henry Bataille
Félix-Henri “Henry” Bataille was a French artist, poet, and playwright. He was born on April 4, 1872, in Nîmes, France, and died on March 2, 1922, in Rueil-Malmaison, France. His parents died when he was young, and he demonstrated an affinity for the arts from an early age. As a child, Bataille attended École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian, but at 14 he began to indulge his passion for writing poems and plays. When his second play, titled La Lépreuse, was successful, he decided to become a playwright full-time.
His early works employed commentary on social pressures and the passion behind motivation. Bataille’s later works dealt with language’s ability to hide subconscious desires, and it was this particular set of language theories that influenced later playwrights such as Jean-Jacques Bernard. Prints created by Bataille in his younger years have been collected by institutions such as the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, among others.