Bastille (1929-1990) was an American artist who lived in France from the 1950s onwards. He worked as an illustrator for fashion magazines and for real estate developers, drawing up plans and renderings of buildings and apartments. In the 1970s, working under the name Bastille, he began to send miniature gouache paintings to BDSM magazines (in particular Danish title TOY) which feature highly elaborate gay sexual fantasies and which could constitute a political pendant to the science-fictional imagery of H.R. Giger.